The Rainbow Lake
by scousemuz1k
Summary: A young Marine, a talented artist, is murdered. The team must find out why, and protect his legacy, and his girl. Team fic, Tony and Tim friendship
1. Chapter 1

**AN: So, scouse… did you have a good time meeting up with the gang? Better believe it! Cheeky's a fantastic cook, and a wonderful hostess, and we had a really special NCIS weekend! Thanks, Cheeks! Since then, been rather busy playing Queen Victoria, (yes, seriously,) at last I've time to write again. This story follows on from my last two, 'Expecting Trouble' and 'Emotional Investment'. I love re-using OCs… it's good to recycle.**

**I neither own nor profit from anything to do with 'NCIS'.**

The Rainbow Lake

by scousemuz1k

Monday morning seemed flat, at least to McGee and Ziva, after the previous day's celebrations. Gibbs didn't seem any different from his usual self; Tony was quiet.

Lucy had been baptized during a regular Sunday morning service at her parents' local church; the congregation had been relaxed and welcoming to everyone.

Back at the Hastings' home it was another story. Polly had done the catering herself, with the enthusiastic help of the genial Spence and Sylvia from next door.

This hadn't suited either grandmother, who seemed to spend the entire afternoon competing with each other; on recipes (which hadn't been used), on baby rearing advice (which was smiled at and ignored), on presents (which were very nice, but embarrassingly extravagant), and tales of rearing their own offspring (just embarrassing).

_Patch firmly removed his tired, fractious daughter from his mother, and took her to lay her in her crib. When he returned to the sitting room his wife was nowhere to be seen._

"_Did you see where Pol went?"_

_He asked Tony because he was well aware of how much the NCIS agent had already done that afternoon, observing, and stepping in to smooth over prickly situations. _

"_Heading for the back door, muttering about matricide," Tony said with feeling._

"_Ah. I'll go – " Lucy's disgruntled wail floated in, and Patch found himself pulled in both directions._

"_I'll go check on Pol," Tony said. "You come when you can."_

_Patch grinned, and went to settle his little girl. _

_Tony sidled out of the front door. If anyone saw him go, they'd think he was going to his car; he didn't want half the house following him out to hassle Polly. He walked round into the back garden, and found her sitting on a stone bench under the kitchen window, head back against the wall, eyes closed, expression exasperated._

"_Hey…"He kept his tone quiet and non-confrontational, but she still opened her eyes and glared until she realised who was speaking. "Are you feeling better yet?"_

"_Aah…" she snorted disgustedly. "It's always the same when they get together. I don't suppose it'll ever be any different." She stood up. "Has anyone missed me?"_

"_Patch. He sent me to look for you… he was settling Lucy down for a sleep, and I don't think he wanted anyone else to do it; she was getting a bit crotchety."_

"_We'd better go back in; I don't want anyone thinking I'm sulking, even if I am."_

_Tony grinned his agreement; he opened the kitchen door and steered her in, his hand under her elbow in friendly concern, saying "Shall I make you a cup of tea?" At the same moment, Patch's father, Arthur stomped into the kitchen from the living room. He glared at them both, and looked pointedly at the hand under Polly's arm, which Tony didn't remove, then poured himself two fingers of scotch and stomped out again, his bulky frame making the door-jamb shudder as he collided with it._

_The big agent rolled his eyes as he reached for the kettle. "How often d'you have to put up with him?"_

_Polly chuckled. "Not too often. Mom H comes by herself mostly; she's a different woman when he's not around. They live in Arkansas anyway, so they're not on the doorstep."_

_Tony was setting up the coffee machine and the teapot as they talked. If you made a drink for one, you might as well make for thirty. Patch came in, saw what they were doing and joined Polly setting cups out._

"_Hey, hon… are you OK now?" _

"_Oh, yeah…Is she down, love?"_

"_Sure… all she needed was peace and a cuddle. What's my father pulling faces about this time?"_

_Polly shook her head and giggled again. "Oh… I think he thinks Tony and I are having an affair."_

_Her husband staggered back, clutching his brow theatrically. "Shocking…"_

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

The feeling of flatness persisted; they all busied themselves with the things that tended to get left while they were working a case, and if they noticed that Tony was even more Monday morning-ish than the rest of them, they didn't say anything. Until the ink ran out in the printer, that was. There was a fairly rude expletive from the SFA as he changed the cartridge over, and they looked up to see him grimacing at a smear of black ink on his shirt cuff.

He got his annoyance under control at once. "That'll teach me to be so careless. I like this shirt…."

"Have you got a spare one?" Tim asked. "You could change and take that one down to Abby."

"That is true, Tony," Ziva agreed. "She says she is better than any professional cleaner, and I believe her."

"She'll be fed up of me," Tony said, stripping off the inky shirt. "It's only a few months since – _what_?"

Gibbs was looking pointedly at his SFA's upper left arm; the angry bruising there was visible across the room.

"Oh… I didn't realise it was that bad." Tony's expression said he was mentally kicking himself. The _incident _had been on his mind all morning, but he'd forgotten it would leave marks, and he'd certainly not have let the team see them if he'd remembered. Damn.

"Those are fresh," Gibbs remarked neutrally.

"That is a hand print, Tony. A large hand." Ziva waited for an explanation, as Tony tried to get his spare shirt on quickly and pretend the last few minutes had never happened. He picked up the damaged garment and began to head out of the bull pen.

"I'll just take this down to Abby – be right back, Boss."

Gibbs reached out to stop him, and his hand froze six inches from Tony's arm, when he realised he'd have gripped it just about where the bruise was. His arm fell to his side again, but his eyes held the younger man anyway.

"Go, then…" he finally said quietly, acknowledging Tony's right _not_ to talk about whatever it was if he didn't want to, and that was what actually broke the SFA's resolve. He tossed the shirt down on his desk in a gesture of frustration and pain, and took a deep breath.

"Apparently, I'm not only an immoral cad wanting to seduce Polly and break up her marriage – and it apparently wouldn't be too difficult, he warned his stupid son not to marry an airy-fairy intellectual anyway – but I'm a potential paedophile, because I'm not married, and I'm volunteering to be a godparent, and that makes me a damn pervert."

"Arthur Hastings," Tim murmured. "I thought it must have been him when I saw the size of that bruise. He's a big lout, and he had too much scotch yesterday."

Tony nodded, and his mouth twisted a little. "I went to use the bathroom. When I came out he cornered me outside Lucy's room. He grabbed my arm and told me to stay away from his daughter in law. I told him she could take care of herself… then all that crap came spewing out. I told him there was a baby sleeping close by, he knew nothing about his son or daughter in law, let alone me, and to take his hand off my arm if he wanted to keep it, and he backed off. End of story." He picked the shirt up again. "Be right back, Boss," he said, and dashed off before anyone could say anything.

Tim finally broke a long silence. "He had a bad time yesterday," he said thoughtfully. Gibbs and Ziva looked at him and waited. "He was anxious about the responsibility – I still don't think he thinks he's good enough – but he was proud to have been asked. He should have been able to enjoy the day, but he spent his time looking out for Polly and Patch, and _very _subtly defusing potential explosions. And every time he actually got the chance to hold Lucy, some old hen'd come along and take her off him. One actually twittered that only ladies knew how to hold babies. And he still managed to keep this incident from us."

"I guess he did right," Gibbs sighed. "It wouldn't have done for me to deck Arthur Hastings on his grand-daughter's christening day."

"It would have been most unfair of you to do it without allowing us to join in, Gibbs," Ziva said severely, and the Boss allowed himself a smile.

Tim didn't, remaining deep in thought. They could joke about it if they liked, but it seemed to always be Tony's misfortune, that when he was trying to act for the best, people believed the worst of him. He tried to imagine how he'd feel if he were accused of being immoral and a pervert all in one breath; and Thom E Gemcity had a very good imagination. No wonder Tony had been quiet all morning.

When the SFA returned, it was with a bright grin. "Good news! Abby says she can save my shirt! It'll be so full of chemicals I'll never be able to wear it again without turning green, but hey… its life is saved, and that's the important thing." Three pairs of eyes challenged him. "OK… I was getting worked up about it. I worried that other people might really think that. But actually… I feel better for telling you."

"Nobody else would think such a thing, Tony!" Ziva spoke hotly and leaned on his desk, striking it with the palm of her hand. "Just because that evil old redhead –"

"Redneck," Tony corrected automatically, beginning to smile.

"Whatever. I may have met a worse man, but I do not remember when. His opinion is of no importance." She tossed her head, and her dark hair flew emphatically around her.

The three men were all smiling by now, entranced by the sight of their Israeli in full cry, and Tony finally shook his head in wonder. "Thanks, Ziva," he said.

"Well, I can understand you not telling us yesterday, but –" Gibbs' desk phone rang and interrupted her.

"Gear up," he said sadly, after listening for a moment. "Dead marine. Kid aged 20."

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

Jamie Hope, Lieutenant Junior Grade sat behind the wheel of his modest car, an eight year old Nissan, in a roadside parking slot on Ohio Drive, towered over by the Arlington Memorial Bridge. The bloody hole in his uniform, above his heart, suggested a knife, although there was no sign of one. His face was boyish, pleasant and open; his dark brown hair just about as long as a marine could get away with. The slight curl to it, and his coffee coloured skin suggested mixed race origin. His brown eyes were half open, the expression on his face calm, as if he hadn't been expecting the blow that had ended his life.

"The car's registered to him," the LEO handing over the case said. "The keys are still in it. We found him fifteen minutes ago; he's still warm. Opened the door, felt for a pulse, called you."

Tony saw something in the foot well, by the young man's leg, and knelt to take photos, then he retrieved it carefully, and got a nasty and unexpected jolt to the heart. It was a sketch book such as Kate had often used. The pencil sketch that had been begun was of the river, and the bridge looming over it; the shadows and water-play reflections on the undersides of the arches receiving more attention than the structure itself. Kate had been very good… this, Tony thought, even barely begun, was riveting.

He held it out wordlessly to Gibbs, wanting to get the Boss's opinion without influencing it with his own, and wasn't surprised when the older man frowned thoughtfully.

"You gonna tell me this is good, right?" 

"I think so, Boss. I think it's _really_ good. I'm no judge, but…"

"Yeah, I got it. Good enough for anyone to recognise it…" He thought for a moment. "He sat here, drawing what he was looking at. Either someone took him by surprise, or he was filling in the time waiting for someone."

"More likely the second, Boss. If he'd been surprised, there'd be more mess. I'd think that he put the pad down, rather than dropped it – I mean, there's no blood on it… there are a couple of pencils down here too."

McGee had come over to look at the pad with them, and didn't look surprised. "You should look in the trunk," he told them, and they walked round to the rear of the car. The luggage compartment contained everything that a dedicated artist might need on his travels, including oil and acrylic based paints, a variety of brushes, more sketch books, pencils, chalks, charcoal, pastels… There were a couple of canvases on their stretchers, but so far unused.

It would all have stretched a Lieutenant JG's pay quite severely, and the ageing car began to make sense. This was clearly an unusual Marine.

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

"Very unusual," Lieutenant Hope's Commanding Officer said, with deep distress. "I don't know where to start. Jamie takes – took – sketchbooks with him wherever he went. He drew everything he saw… his brother marines going about their duties; the places they went to… things they saw. In the end, we started buying some of his materials for him, and asking him to draw particular subjects. His talent was unique and original, and that's not me talking, it's the experts. There were plans afoot to publish a book of his work, a marine's life through one man's eyes."

He shook his head sorrowfully. "He didn't neglect his duties, but every spare moment he had, he was doing what he loved doing… Special Agent Gibbs, he was not only a rare talent, but a fine young soldier, and one of the nicest men you could wish to meet. I don't know of any reason why anyone would wish to do him harm. We're all deeply shocked and grieved."

Gibbs knew the truth when he saw it, and spoke with gruff sympathy. "Colonel Moss, what can you tell us about his personal life?"

"His mother died in a vehicle accident three years ago; his father had a heart attack and died five months later. No siblings, although I believe he has a girlfriend. Captain Holton could tell you about her if you wish; I believe he's already spoken to the poor girl… Jamie had intended to go to University, but decided to try for the Corps instead. I've been – I was – his CO from the time he completed his training. He never said outright, at least not to me, but I think he found a different sort of family."

He pinched the bridge of his nose briefly. "I'll tell you this much; a great talent's been lost with him, and more than that, he'll be missed as a brother by all of us."

Gibbs thanked the Colonel, and he and Ziva left. A sort while later they compared notes with Tony and Tim, who'd been talking to as many of the murdered young man's friends as they could track down. They had all said the same sort of thing.

"He was quiet," Tony reported, "But friendly, and well liked, Boss. They all knew he was good; he'd sketch them to send to their wives and girlfriends; better than a photo, they said. And yes, he had a girlfriend, Sue, they called her. He has – had – a small apartment off the Columbia Pike; McGee pulled the address."

"Go there; take Ziva." As the two agents left, he gave Tim the information that the Captain had given him. "McGee, start pulling up everything else, starting with the girlfriend. I'm going to see Ducky – call me when you get something."

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

The apartment was on the top floor of its block, and the supervisor was willing to open up for them. "He didn't mind the four flights of stairs," he puffed, "He said the light was good." More than that, he hadn't the breath to explain. He unlocked the door, and left them to it.

As they opened the door, they were surprised to hear a crash and noises of hasty movement from inside. They frowned at each other, drew their guns and entered cautiously. The room they found was lit by a large window along one side, and a skylight on the other side of the room, where the roof sloped. There was a tiny living space at one end, the rest of the under-the roof- space was entirely taken up as an artist's studio.

Between them and the Lieutenant's work, a slight figure stood, huge brown eyes fearful and angry, brandishing a lamp base as a weapon… until it was lowered shakily.

"Agent David?"

"_Sunita?_"

**AN: This took me some time to get into… it rambles and witters a bit… be kind and put it down to exhaustion, please?**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: I'm sincerely grateful to Tesub Calle, for her great insight into an artist's relationship with his or her work. Thanks, TC!**

The Rainbow Lake

Chapter 2

Tony didn't have to search his memory for long. He remembered the small, slight apprentice from ESCD, and then recalled that she was the person who'd been locked in with Ziva, as the drug thieves made their escape. Heck, he was never likely to forget his team-mate's incandescent fury at being caught like that.

Now, as he checked out the rest of the apartment, the youngster wailed Ziva's name, and flew, sobbing into her arms. As his partner led the girl over to a long wooden bench against the wall, and sat hugging her, he reflected how much she had changed. When he first knew her, she would have gone stiff with repugnance at the thought of such physical contact; and he smiled inside at the objective tenderness that was gradually calming Sunita down.

Sunita… Sue…It was a very small world. Quinky-dink? Gibbs would say no. He'd double check, of course, but his gut simply had him feeling sorry for the scrap of teenager who'd no sooner been involved in one case, than another was breaking her heart.

Her friends called her Sunny, or Nita, or Sita, or Sue… she was talking too much, but they recognised shock, and let her run on. They liked Sunny, so it stuck. She was eighteen, "Nearly nineteen," and she'd been dating Jamie, mostly long-distance, foralmost a year.

"Long enough to love each other," she said desolately.

"How did you meet?" Tony asked, giving the impression of idle curiosity; but it was all good background information.

"My brother Arjun joined the Corps; we went to his passing out day, and Jamie was painting the scene. I sat and watched him for nearly an hour before I got up the courage to speak to him." The tears welled again, and Tony dug out a clean handkerchief.

"Sunny, what brought you here when you found out what had happened?" he asked as he handed it over.

"It was his wish," she said simply. "But… I thought if I ever had to do it, it would be because he died in battle, not like _this_!"

"To do what?"

She looked at him with those huge brown eyes and swallowed desperately as she struggled for control.

"Sunny," Ziva urged her gently, "Perhaps you should start at the beginning."

Tony closed the front door, and went to the tiny kitchen alcove to rustle up some warm drinks, as Sunny nodded. She took a deep breath, and began her story.

"I live with my parents, which is fine while I'm stationed here, but I spend a lot of my time here, even if Jamie is… even when he was away. He gave me a key. He knew he could trust me, and I kept it well hidden so no-one could steal it. You see… we never really said as much, because he was never vain, but we both knew he'd be great. That he'd be famous one day…" She waved her hand at the studio. "All this would be worth something… he already pays the rent on this place all year round by selling his work. Paid."

She choked back another tearing sob. "D'you know how much more valuable an artist's stuff becomes if he dies? The ghouls come flocking…" She paused and looked at them both wide eyed. "Was he working on something when he died? At that moment, I mean?"

Ziva nodded solemnly. "A view of the Arlington Bridge… we think he was just sketching to pass the time."

"It'll be worth stupid money now," the youngster said viciously. "Just because he'll never finish it…" The Israeli put her arm round her comfortingly again.

"You were telling us that Jamie trusted you," she prompted.

Sunny nodded. "He had a few gallery owners he trusted, who sold his pieces. All of those works had provenance, and can be accounted for. When he was at college, he drew for his friends; he drew for his marine buddies too. He signed and dated all his stuff. It wasn't ego, people used to ask him to. Anyway, all of that has moved beyond his control, legitimately. But his other work… he valued it because he'd put himself into it. He said that if anything happened to him, and it's specified in his will," Again she had to pause to steady herself, "He wanted me to take charge of it. Apart from a few named works for particular friends, I'm to see that everything is kept together, authenticated, and sold publicly. The money raised is to go to named charities."

She looked round the room again. "He thought this would only be if he were to be killed on active duty… he asked me, and again it's in his will, to destroy everything that wasn't finished, and I… I will, but in the mean time I'm going to make sure it's all kept safe from the vultures. He knew he could die, and what would happen… and, you see, there are a few that he didn't like when he'd half done them… he didn't think they were good enough… the sketches he tore up, the paintings he kept to re-use the canvas. But if he didn't think they were worth seeing, he wasn't going to let them be seen."

She pointed to the grille on the roof-light. "He put that on; it folded back when he was paintingto let more light in. The window to the fire escape is in the passage outside; there's a sheer drop under this one." She pointed to the long window along the side of the studio area. "He strengthened the door and put a decent lock on it. I said he wasn't vain… but he was… proprietorial, I suppose you'd say. He didn't want the wrong people getting his work." She looked round. "The place is as secure as he could make it."

Tony put a mug of hot, sweet tea into her hand. "Jamie really did trust you, to charge you with something so important," he told her.

"I never thought I'd have to _do_ it," the teenager said raggedly. "My Jamie…" the tears ran silently down her face. Ziva held her comfortingly, and Tony called Gibbs.

"I reckon we need you both here, Boss… there's a lot of stuff that needs protecting. And a young lady…" He explained briefly what Sunita had told them, Gibbs grunted an 'on our way' and hung up. Tony knelt on the floor in front of Sunny and took her hands.

"Jamie's car has gone to our forensics expert," he told her. "Everything that was in the trunk has become evidence, including the pencil sketches that were there, and the one that Ziva mentioned. I was thinking that any one of the works here could carrysome clue; they're evidence too, they need to be gone through…"

"You're saying," Sunita said slowly, "That they'd be safer there than here with only me to protect them."

"In a nutshell, yes. You think so too, don't you?"

"I guess I do… somebody killed him…"

"Well, what I said is true; there could be some information to be found, so it could be that we have to take it all. But I'm thinking of you too, sweetheart. You don't need to be single-handedly guarding stuff that could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars – or maybe more. Do you trust us?"

"Yes."

"Good girl." He patted her hands and released them. "D'you have an inventory?"

Sunny stood up shakily, went to a fairly old computer on a table in a corner, and powered up. "I'll show you," she said. "Jamie was meticulous… here we are. I used to help him keep it up to date…"

A tear splatted down on the keyboard, and Ziva said concernedly, "Are you sure you want to do this just now?"

"Yes." She smiled, a heartbroken, wry smile. "I have a strong fatalistic streak – my Hindu background, I suppose. You were sent to me when I was wondering what to do, and now I know. I'll fall apart later."

Tony peered over her shoulder. There was a list of all the works that Jamie had sold or given away. A star meant sold; the more numerous un-starred pieces had been given away. "That doesn't include anything he did in school, or quick things for his friends before he began to realise he was good."

There was a list of works in progress. "That's going to be important now," Sunnysaid sadly. "Then there's the big list of completed work… I'm better with computers thanJamie, so I've set it up in different ways, alphabetical, chronological, medium, subject, and cross-referenced them all."

Tony nodded approvingly; she was scarcely more than a child, but she knew what she was doing. He was going to ask how many they'd have to take away, when he noticed that Ziva had gone still and was looking at the front door, reaching for her gun. He fell silent, put his finger on his lips, and pulled Sunny to her feet. He steered her over to the archway into the bathroom, pushed her in and shut the door. Drawing his gun he went back to Ziva.

The scratching sound suggested that someone was trying to pick the lock. Ziva stood behind the door and began to turn the deadbolt lever slowly. There was nothing else to do, although she knew that the movement might alert the would-be burglar. Sure enough, they heard a surprised expletive from the passage outside, then the sound of running feet. Ziva abandoned caution and yanked the door open; Tony exploded through it, and took a microsecond to listen, as the window to the fire escape stood open. Clanking footsteps came from below, and he leapt through it onto the metal staircase.

He went jumping and sliding down, but he knew that the motorbike sitting at the foot of the ladder was going to make his efforts futile. He tried to get a clear shot at the bike, but the metal stairs made it difficult, and he didn't want to kill either the fugitive or himself with a ricochet, so he kept on plunging downwards. He didn't get a clear shot at the Honda until it was accelerating away; but he still gave the back tyre his best shot. The rear wheel wobbled and skidded dangerously, but the rider kept control until he was about two hundred yards away, when he braked, jumped off and ran. As he disappeared into a shopping area, Tony said something rude, gave up the chase and holstered his gun.

Clearly someone had called the cops, because there was the sound of an approaching siren, so he was able to turn the bike over to LEOs and get back to Ziva quite quickly; nevertheless he had more sense than not to phone her first to let her know what had happened, so there were two faces looking down through the high window as he climbed up. Ziva looked him up and down suspiciously, checking for damage.

"I'm fine, sweetcheeks. It was me who fired the shot, remember?" Any smart retort was forestalled by the arrival of Gibbs in an agency car, Balboa's team in another, and then the NCIS truck, driven by McGee.

Balboa's team carried very obvious, very large, no messing shotguns, and two of them took up positions at the bottom of the fire escape. Balboa and his SFA made their way up to the top of the building with Gibbs.

"So… took ya at your word. 'Hundreds of thousands of dollars – or maybe more', right?"

"Worth murdering for, Boss. But the evidence thing isn't just a ploy. We're protecting a Marine's legacy here – for the sake of justice, and the benefit of other –"

Gibbs actually put a reassuring hand on his SFA's shoulder. "I get it, Tony. McGee got me a look at the will. He also had the legal department take a look at what we're doing, and they're fine with that. A lot of money for really good causes… How's the little girl bearing up?"

"Brave, determined. She'll do what she has to." He filled the Boss in on the story so far. "LEOs are taking the bike to Abby. I… er, I figured we'd best check everything against the inventory, and take it back with us."

"OK… McGee to help Ms Vaz?"

Tony's smile as he realised that the Boss was letting him make the decisions wasalmost shy. "I thought so, Boss. Good idea bringing the truck, by the way. It's a big job… maybe forty paintings, twelve folders of pastel drawings, dozens of sketchbooks, and the seven that Private Hope left instructions should be destroyed. Sunny – Apprentice Vas – will do that as soon as they've been processed."

"Didn't she tell you? She's been promoted. Hospital Corpsman Vas."

"Hey, no… that's good; she's a sparky kid – well, she would be. But she's in civvies, and I guess it was the last thing on her mind. Anyhows… better get on… it's a big job, and I don't know if other things are more urgent?"

"I'll fill you in on that later – Vance is keeping tabs in case anything comes up."

Tony nodded, and thanked Balboa for coming, then they got to work.

It was labour intensive, to say the least… The folders and sketchbooks were easy to handle, and not susceptible to damage, but forty paintings had to be taken care of. As the load gradually diminished, Tony came across a cloth bag against a wall; it seemed to have two small pictures, each about a foot square, inside. One was a canvas on stretchers, the other was much flatter, and in a light frame.

"Sunny… can I interrupt?" She and Tim were concentrating hard on what they were doing.

She looked at the bag and practically snatched it from him. "Those are mine!" She took in his startled reaction, and was instantly embarrassed. "Tony, I'm sorry! After you've been so kind…" She hesitated, then finally said softly, "They _are _mine… you… can look if you like… it's OK."

Tony's eyebrows said 'are you sure', then he lifted the two pictures out of the bag. One was a military parade. It was a vibrant picture, full of movement and living colour. "It's a smaller version of the one he was painting when we met. He did it specially for me afterwards. Turn it over."

'For Sunny; the day we met. Love, Jamie.' Both Tony and Tim smiled, but sadly.

She looked at the floor as Tony lifted out the other one. It was a pencil drawing, a portrait of her. She was sitting up in bed, naked, a sheet over her drawn up knees, which her arms circled. Her hair, which they'd never seen unbraided and let down, was loose round her shoulders, and she was looking up at the artist with those luminous eyes, in a few pencil strokes full of warmth and love. She was beautiful, and both men said so. On the corner: 'They can't tell us we're too young. I love you for ever, my Su. Jamie'

Tony squeezed her shoulder, and she put the pictures away. Nobody said anything, there wasn't really anything they _could_ say.

The work went on for a while. They had used up almost all of the bubble wrap that Abby had sent, and were thinking they'd have to start on the bedding, when a commotion in the corridor interrupted their musings.

"I repeat, Sir, you may not enter the apartment, and if you attempt to, I will arrest you for interfering with the course of an investigation." Ziva planted herself firmly in the doorway, in front of an overweight man in his late forties, wearing a plum coloured suit with a yellow figured shirt, the cuffs of which stuck out four inches from the sleeves of the suit jacket. He had a yellow cabbage rose in his buttonhole, and the silver pin on his gold satin tie was an art deco naked woman.

"Don't be ridiculous, young woman. A great talent has been lost, and it's my duty to the nation to make sure that his work is taken care of."

Tony loomed behind Ziva. "And you are?"

The man looked affronted, but he wasn't as tall as Tony, so even drawing himself up to his full height didn't put it over as well as he might have wished. "I am Aslan O'Hare –"

Tony thought incredulously _"Aslan?" _C. must be turning in his grave…

"I own the Alexia Galleries in the Dupont Circle. I exhibit the finest artists in the United States; my clients include royalty…"

"And are you an executor of Private Hope's will?"

"What will? Er… I mean –"

"Apparently not. So, by means of which legal process are you here today?" Tony was _really_ enjoying himself.

"I… Jamie Hope's work deserves the very best - "

"Ah, Miss Vas?" Tony called over his shoulder, and Sunny appeared, with Tim at her side. For the first time that day there was a glint of steel in her eyes. "This is Miss Sunita Vas, the person named by Private Hope as the executor of his will."

The art dealer gawped comically at the skinny girl in jeans and a hoodie. "That _child_?"

Tony was having _so _much fun – at the back of his mind hung the unfunny thought that this awful stereotype was not even the first of the vultures to circle over Sunita's loss, and his enjoyment turned cold and malicious inside him. "Miss Vas, this gentleman is Aslan O'Hare –" He put the very slightest emphasis on the 'Aslan' but kept his face straight.

"Yes, I recognise Mr. O'Hare."

"Is he on Jamie Hope's approved list of dealers?" Tim slipped seamlessly into the charade.

"No," Sunita said calmly. "He most certainly is not."

"I trust that's clear, then," Tony said coolly. "Perhaps you'd like to see yourself off the premises."

"Or I could escort you, of course," Tim offered. He took a step forward, but the art dealer turned without another word and stormed off. The young agent followed him down the passage for a few paces, and then turned back dismissively. Sunny high fived Tony, as everyone else in the room murmured their satisfaction. She laughed, and then collapsed against him, shaking. He led her to the bench she'd used earlier, and sat with his arm round her.

"I've got to be strong," she whispered hoarsely. "This is going to go on happening and happening, and I've got to be strong, and all I want is to cry my heart out for Jamie…"

"You don't have to be strong by yourself. You know that."

Tim sat down at her other side. "What about your parents, Sunny?"

"They're brilliant. But they're away, visiting friends for an anniversary, and if I tell them, they'll come back."

"Wouldn't they prefer that to not being told?" Tim tried not to sound too big brother.

"Probably… I'll tell them as soon as I have time. But they're in Oregon, so they couldn't get back until tomorrow anyway. I'll be fine."

Not alone, you won't, Tony thought, but he'd had a good idea, a brilliant idea if he said it himself.

Gibbs came over. "Got a problem," he said without preamble. "We've checked everything out, nothing's gone down to the truck without being double checked against the list. There's one missing."

"Missing?" Sunny shot up from the bench, and gazed around the now empty studio. All that was left was the collection of materials and equipment. "What's missing, Special Agent Gibbs?"

"This one," Ziva called from the computer. The last completed work listed… an oil painting –"

Sunny pressed her hands to her face. "No…" she whispered. "The Rainbow Lake…"

**AN: The title was given me by Imogen, aged **_**nearly**_** five, who drew me a picture of her mum and dad on bicycles, beside what she described as a rainbow lake. I asked her where the idea came from, and she gave me an old fashioned look. "My imagination." Stupid granma for not knowing that!**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Thanks, Belker, for pointing out something I didn't know… I tried to use the name of the author who invented Aslan, and the site wouldn't allow me. I had checked that he wasn't on the list of writers who don't wish to be used on the site, but I had no idea that I couldn't actually mention an author by name.**

**I simply wanted to give a pretentious toad a noble name, to show that his parents had been as pretentious as him. Absolutely no offence was intended to fans of the author or his works.**

**I know very little about Native American culture, but I've researched the little bit of information I've used. Nevertheless, I couldn't presume to know enough to write about a particular nation, so the Howakhan people are a creation.**

**Finally, Arthur Hastings is a nasty bit of work, a racist and a bigot. The opinions he spews, as Tony put it, are his, NOT MINE. **

The Rainbow Lake

Chapter 3

Three men sat on a back porch, in the late afternoon sunshine. One, using a phone, was silent, or cussing as often as he spoke, while the others drank beer from the bottle and listened idly, as the speaker became more irate. After a while the handset was slammed back into its cradle so hard the listeners expected to see it shatter.

"Damn it! That idiot hasn't got the balls or the sense to do a job right!" The speaker was a stocky individual in middle age, wearing a grey shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. It was his back porch.

"No painting, then," a second man said, unsurprised. "Maybe he's already given it to Tam."

"Fool didn't even get over the doorstep to find out. Some feds or other were there."

"Feds!" The second man, younger, thin and mean faced, dived out of his chair, grabbed another beer from the fridge and slammed the door shut. "Trev, how the hell did –"

"You know damn fine well how – and if you'd slow down on drinkin' my beer, you'd remember. You killed a marine this morning. Not just some daisy painter. You think you can just do that?"

The third man spoke lazily. "Y'all couldn't get a simple thing right between you. Send a hothead to do a job that needed finesse…" The younger man leapt up again, and stood over the speaker threateningly, but the seated man didn't bat an eyelid. "Sit down, Gary. Y'_are_ a hothead, and I'm not afraid of you." He looked back at the other man, Trevor Buckley. "And send a poof to do a man's job… Did you seriously think he'd achieve _anything_?" He took another pull of his beer. "We need the painting _even more_ now you killed the artist…"

He heaved himself out of his chair with difficulty, a large, bulky man with hands like bunches of rather dangerous bananas, and stared out over the pleasant, green landscape, to the lavender haze of the sea in the distance.

"All young Black had was a _ethnic minority _dream, and the promise of a painting by a _mixed race _artist who was _going _to be famous - " his voice snarled with contempt – "Now, it's going to be a painting by a _famous_ artist… his talent _tragically _extinguished…his _last_ painting… well, congratulations on getting us the exact opposite of what we wanted."

He turned back, hands on hips. "So… any bright ideas on what to do now? We _need_ that land. How long's it gonna take? I gotta business to run back in Ar-Kan-Saw. I don't need to be here running round after some half-bit injun!"

Buckley winced in spite of himself. "Tell me, Arthur… just what's a red-neck good ol' boy like you doing living in Little Rock anyways?"

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

Sunny stood in the middle of the room and did a slow spin, biting down on her lower lip. The afternoon sun hurt her eyes as it reflected off the now empty walls. She pushed her hands through her hair as she slowly turned, the feel of her finger tips on her scalp was like sandpaper, and there was a roaring in her ears as she muttered "No…"

Tony stood up fast, and seized her shoulders. "Sunny, don't. Come on, look at me. Take deep breaths…" He scooped her up and carried her to the tiny living space, where there was a small sofa. He'd have struggled to share it with anyone, but the pint sized girl just about fitted. He let her get her breath back, and Tim brought her some water.

When she muttered a shaky "Thanks," they helped her to sit up again, and waited.

"Tam wouldn't have wanted it this way," she said sadly, almost to herself, and took a deep breath. No-one interrupted her pointlessly by asking who Tam was. "He's Jamie's best friend. Private Tam Black. The picture was for him…"

_It was a good place to stop to eat. The unit had patrolled the hilly area since oh- four hundred hours that morning; the Presidential helicopter was due to land at an unspecified time at the small airfield on the level ground below. Nobody in the area knew, but no chances were being taken. At thirteen hundred hours the aircraft took off again, and as it faded to a tiny black lightbulb shaped dot in the sky, the Corporal called a rest._

"_Fantastic view,"Jamie said with an artist's appreciation, digging out his sketchbook before his rations, as usual. "Hey, wake up, man… it's more important to eat than sleep right now." He did so, with an energy bar in one hand and a pencil in the other._

_Tam sat up again reluctantly, with a yawn. "Didn't sleep well," he mumbled. As he took a first bite of his food, he agreed with his friend. "It __**is**__ a great view. Reminds me of home."_

"_You have hills like this?"_

"_Oh, yeah. It's Virginia, for heavens sakes. You should come and see. But you always spend your leave with Sunny. Not that I blame you, of course." He yawned mightily again._

"_I thought you were well away last night," Jamie said. "Why couldn't you sleep?"_

"_I did," Tam said quietly. "But I had a helluva dream. Often do."_

"_What about?"_

_Tam looked for a minute as if he were going to tell, but then shook his head._

_Jamie gave him a look of mock outrage. "Come on, man… you can't tell me that much and then not the rest… you were going to. What stopped you?"_

"_Awright," Tam said heavily, "but you'll be hiding the knives in a minute. D'you know what my name actually is?" _

"_What? Your name? I just thought it was Tam. Or… OK, maybe it's Scottish? Short for Thomas?"_

"_It's Naantam. Howakhan word…" Now he really looked embarrassed. Jamie went on sketching the scene calmly so his friend didn't have to look at him. "Means wolf. My Mom had romantic ideas."_

_Jamie frowned and thought. "Howakhan," he said. "Chief of one of the Algonquinian nations. One who welcomed the settlers, is people weren't particularly well rewarded for their kindness. The tribe's been known by his name since… what? 1700s? Why do I have to hide the knives?"_

Sunny smiled slightly. "Tam had always been wary of letting on that he was a full blooded Native American, from a tribe that had rather a romanticised history. Jamie laughed, and said that his dad was from Trinidad, and his Mom was from Tiger Bay, Cardiff. Her surname had been Moretti, as her Mum had married an Italian prisoner of war who liked Wales, and never bothered to go home. He said he defied anybody to have an odder background, and so what? Tam said he sometimes got teased about the 'wolf' thing, and Jamie said friends don't tease."

They were all completely quiet; Ziva and Tony sitting on the floor, Tim perched on a footstool, Gibbs and Balboa leaning against the wall. Rocky's team had taken the truck, with an escort of LEOs, back to the Navy Yard.

Sunny looked at them all, grateful that they were letting her take her time. Nobody urged her, "But what about the Rainbow Lake?"

"_And the dream?" Jamie queried._

"_My mother said a Howakhan should listen to his dreams, and this one, well, I keep having it, one way or another. I'm walking, or standing by a lake. Still blue water, mirroring the sky. Sometimes it's blue, sometimes the day's cloudy, so the water's silver. Once it was sunset, so the water was red and gold. The colours always seem brighter than in real life. You'd love them, with your artistic eyes…"_

"_Yeah," Jamie said, "I would. Go on…"_

"_I just like the look of the water, I don't feel any desire to dive in. And my own voice is going on at me, 'it has to change', not over and over, but every so often I hear it, and I don't take any notice. And no matter how beautiful it looks, I don't do anything. Until last night, that is. I looked down at the water, and saw my reflection, and I was in ceremonial tribal dress, which I've never worn in my life… and I didn't hesitate for a moment; I just dived in. Then the lake changed… it wasn't blue, or silver, or red… I can't describe it… it was every colour, moving…like oil on water… or swimming in a rainbow."_

_Tam looked sideways at his friend, who'd stopped sketching, and was looking at him. There wasn't a trace of ridicule on his face. "So what changed in your life then?" _

_Tam blinked. "Oh, you're sharp, buddy." He paused, reaching for the words. "I think I've been hiding my heritage," he said carefully, "for fear of ridicule. Don't say that's foolish-"_

"_I didn't."_

"_Well, I finally did. I'm a Marine, right? If I'm not scared of swimming through a fifteen foot submerged pipe with my pack on my back, why should I be scared of a bit of laughter?"_

"Jamie thought Tam had probably been teased as a child, but he didn't say anything. But when they came back to DC, the moment he was back here he started on that painting. When he'd finished, he got Tam over here to show him. It's the only time I've ever seen a Marine cry. It's the most amazing picture… it's as if it's seen through a mist, in a dream… the colours are clouded over in some parts, and really bright in some areas, but although there are so many, they're not garish. I can't explain. There's a shadowy figure in the water, you can hardly see it… it's like a baptism… or a birth… Wait a minute…" she finished, remembering something.

She got up and went to the computer desk, and pulled a drawer open. After sorting through a pile of A4 glossy photographs, she held one out. "The Rainbow Lake", she said softly. Gibbs was nearest, and he took it, holding it at arm's length. He looked for a while, nodded thoughtfully, and passed it on to Balboa. The others waited impatiently until it was handed on to them. Ziva held it and Tim and Tony looked over her shoulder. Nobody said anything; everybody felt the magnetism of the painting, even though they were only looking at a photograph. Sometimes there just weren't words.

Sunny was crying softly again, and this time it was Tim who was closest, and who threw a comforting arm round her. "Tam asked how much it would cost to buy it. He said if it took him his whole career to raise the money he would. Jamie laughed. He said, 'You daft twit. It's yours. Look on the back.' There's another photo in that pile."

Ziva looked, and found the right one. "'For Naantam, who isn't afraid of laughter'," she read. "'The Rainbow Lake, a warrior's dream, from your friend Jamie.' He has made it plain that it is his gift to his best friend."

"There's one more thing you should know," Sunny said. "Remember Tam mentioned the hills near his home?"

"_It needs to dry thoroughly before I'll let it out of my sight," Jamie said. "But I'll let you know the moment you can have it."_

"_In the mean time, can I come back here and just look at it sometimes?" Jamie and Sunita laughed, but then Tam's serious face silenced them. _

"_Not afraid of laughter," he said thoughtfully." Not afraid of change any more either. I have some land..." They waited, curious, for him to go on. "My grandfather left it to me. On the side of a hill… overlooking the bay… On three levels… you couldn't build a house there without blasting a chunk out of the hill – which is what developers 'd do, given the chance."_

_He chuckled. "You could build a heritage centre there, though… right in the heart of old Howakhan country… I was going to say an unromanticised heritage – but what's more romantic than this?" He gestured at the picture. "The elders have been wanting to do it for a long time… I'll give them the land… and this picture can have pride of place. My Mom used to say listen to your dreams…"_

"Tam brought two Elders to look at the painting. They were surprised that the artist wasn't a Native American. They felt he understood them. The centre _will_ be built… how am I going to tell Tam that his painting's gone?" Sunny came to the end of her narrative and sank against Tim's shoulder exhaustedly, burying her face in his shoulder.

After a while, Balboa said quietly, "So… we have the background on the painting, and its disappearance right now is too much of a coincidence not to be linked to the murder, but how much nearer does it bring us to knowing who killed Private Hope?"

"Couldn't tell ya, Rocky."

Balboa decided to head back, as he and his team had been 'borrowed' for the day. When he'd gone, with their thanks following him out of the door, Tim said "Er… Sunny's dropped off to sleep, Boss."

Nobody was surprised; they were glad she was getting a bit of respite from her grief. Tim eased her down onto the sofa, and Tony fetched a blanket. As she slept, they had a good look round the apartment, although strictly speaking, it wasn't a crime scene, since nobody knew how or when the painting had gone from there. Nothing seemed unusual. They stood in the kitchen alcove and made coffee, since no-one had time to eat or drink; and talked things over in low voices.

"Agent Balboa is right," Ziva mused; "It is too much of a coincidence… but the apartment is like a fortress… we would know if someone had broken in to steal it. So someone who was here legitimately is most likely. I will go and ask the landlord if he has noticed Jamie having any visitors."

"We need to find Tam Black, too," Tim said. "The unit's on two days stand-down, so he could have gone back to his folks in Virginia. We need to talk to him."

"From what we've heard he's unlikely to be the killer," Gibbs continued the thread, "But if he's not a suspect, he could be a potential victim…"

"Especially if the land hasn't been signed over yet?" Tony asked, and the Boss nodded.

"If his land, or his picture's linked to why Jamie Hope was killed, we need him where we can protect him."

"He's not the only one who needs protecting," Tony said, looking across at the bedraggled young woman sleeping on the sofa. "But I've already taken care of that. I know where to take her where she'll be safe."

Gibbs nodded. "You've talked to Polly."

"Patch, actually; they worked together briefly, until he left ESCD and went to Bethesda. He said bring her over."

"Good thinking. Take McGee. Ziva and I'll go back and start looking for Black." He began to head for the door. "Oh, and DiNozzo…"

"Boss?"

"One cuddle of Lucy. Just one. Short, then ya get back to the Yard. Right?"

Tony just grinned.

**TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

The Rainbow Lake

Chapter 4

Patch took emergency leave and went home right away; and was waiting with Polly and a snuffly, sleepy Lucy when Tony and Tim arrived at Sandybacks with their tired, sad charge. Tim had sat with her in the back of the vehicle so she wouldn't feel isolated, as Tony drove fast up towards Glenelg. Sunny looked at the six week old ruler of the house and was captivated, as everyone was who met her. Tony had hoped this would happen, to give the grieving youngster something else to focus on, and he couldn't think of anybody better to look after her than the Hastings family.

"You _delivered _her, Tony?" The big agent just smiled; he still found it difficult to find words about that day.

"Right here in this room," Polly told her, and watched her eyes grow round.

"Now her parents don't have to figure out how to make an emergency return from the other side of the country," Patch said, as his wife took capable charge. "She's safe with us until they get back. And no, we won't tell a soul she's here."

"I owe you," Tony told him, handing Lucy back from a _very_ short cuddle.

"No, you don't," the gangly doctor said. "Our pleasure."

The conversation on the drive back started slowly. Neither man had forgotten their talk after Frank Heron's stupidity; and Tim had observed his friend closely as he held his god-daughter. The far-away look was still there, but the pain not so much. As they got into the car, Tony gave him a knowing grin. "I'm _fine_, McCounsellor. Really."

"That's OK, then. Hey… did you hear the lovely Frank's been transferred off Marchetti's team?"

"Oh… thought I'd not noticed him around. Where'd he go?"

"Couldn't care less…" He opened his cell phone. "I'll get an update… maybe you can do some CORD while you drive."

"CORD? Sounds like some old western film star."

"C-O-R-D. Connecting of random dots. It's your thing."

"Oh. Yeah… I guess it is. I don't know if it made me a good detective, or if being a detective taught me to do it… You do it with computers."

"I do?"

"Well… twenty similar files, hundred sub-divisions each, d'you faff about wondering where to look?"

"Oh, I get it. Yeah, it comes naturally to me… like your cord."

Tony laughed, it felt like for the first time that day. "Stoppit, McGee, you make it sound like I've got some horrible disease. How about FFF for you? That's three fs, by the way."

Sigh. "Any more would be excessive. Go on…"

"Fenomenal File Filtering…"

Tim smiled and hit speed dial 1.

"On our way back, Boss. Anything to update us on?"

He listened for a while, said "Right," and disconnected with a huff. Tony glanced at him.

"Not a lot, then."

"More like not good. Two girls from Legal have stayed on to unload the truck; one of them knows how to handle paintings apparently. Marchetti's checking it all off against the list, so no-one who did the loading is involved with it. Nobody's even begun to study the pictures yet. Abby went over the car; the passenger side had been wiped roughly, so she got mostly smears –"

"Did she look –" 

"Under the door handle?" 

"Course she did, she's Abby. Sorry. Go on."

Tim went on. "She found a partial, but it's not conclusive. We'd need something to compare it with. Only Jamie Hope's prints on the sketchpad. She found some dirt in a boot print in the foot well; analysis suggests Virginia, Chesapeake Bay area… possibly the area that's old Howakhan territory."

"Ow. Possibly Tam Black's area. His best friend killed him? But why?"

"There's more," Tim said seriously. "Ducky said that the murder definitely happened in the car. Someone climbed in, sat alongside Jamie and stabbed him. No signs of resistance, so the odds are he was taken by surprise, attacked so quickly he never saw it coming –"

"His face was calm, remember?" Tony recalled.

"I do. So he either didn't have time to defend himself, or never knew he had to."

Tony nodded thoughtfully, pulled to the side of the road and put the car in park. He reached behind the passenger seat and pulled out a road atlas. "OK, it's a bit big. Pretend. But I'm sitting here, watching the river and sketching. You get into my car; I'm expecting you. Out of politeness, I stop what I'm doing, and put the pad down. If it were here," he indicated it on his lap, "I'd have bled on it. And there'd have been a void on my clothes." He put the map book down by his seat where the sketchpad had been in the Marine's car, and turned back to Tim.

"Either I'm killed right away, or we talk, and the conversation doesn't go well. In which case –" He blinked. Tim's fist, inside edge of the right hand, was against his heart, and he'd barely seen him move. He let his breath out long and slow. Even being _pretend _stabbed in the chest felt nasty. "Er… yeah, like that," he muttered as his friend pulled his hand back.

"To do it that fast," Tim said, "I'd have to have had the knife out ready. Or in a sheath on my leg." He tapped his right thigh, just above the knee. "It doesn't have to have been his friend," he went on, as Tony put the atlas away and pulled out from the kerb again. "I hope it isn't, from the way Sunny described the friendship."

"Is there more to it, then? The dirt's only circumstantial… you were telling me about Ducky."

"Yeah… he says the profile and depth of the wound doesn't suggest any knife a marine would use…" He sighed.

Tony almost said, "Well, that's a good thing, then," but a Marine wouldn't carry his kit around with him when he was off duty. A hunter, now… "So, a hunting knife then?"

"Yeah," Tim said heavily. "Bowie shape with serration at the rear of the blade."

"Thousands in the Bay area alone, McGee," Tony said, trying to reassure his friend. He, too, didn't want to go with the idea of the best friend who'd offered to pay the earth for, and been _given_, a painting that could be worth a fortune one day, killing the giver. "We can't go saying, 'Oh, _just _what a young Native American would carry on his way to kill his best friend'."

"I know, Tony. But while we've got nothing else…"

"Don't worry. Gibbs'll keep an open mind. Anything else?" 

Tim felt a bit reassured by that. Thanks, Tony.

"Ziva's been pulling personal information on both of them; absolutely nothing untoward. Black owns the land legitimately, it wasn't actually _left_ to him as Sunny thought, it was given to him by his father's father before he died. Both mens' financial positions are healthy and above board; Jamie Hope was amassing quite a decent savings account thanks to his work; alone in the world but for Sunny. He still had his parents' place in McLean, it's being renovated; and that's it."

He sighed again. "Everything goes to Sunny, so she can fulfil her dream of becoming a pharmacist. That's why the Navy has her at ESCD for the moment; so she can learn current medicines inside out. Then next October she'll go to college. Tony, don't look like that! You can't believe she killed him?" 

"No, I don't. I just don't relish telling the poor kid that she's got motive and needs an alibi. By now, I guess Ziva's moved on to checking _her _background." He shook his head and concentrated on the road; his shoulders slumping as much as it's possible to do while driving. "This is going to get worse before it gets better," He said darkly. "So… pharmacy. That's why they sent her where Patch was, I guess. Who better to learn from? Anything else?"

"Abby's finished with the car, she was about to start on Jamie's cell phone, and I'm to 'get your butt back here and start on this computer'."

"'And tell DiNozzo I've got work for him too'," Tony took up the mimicry, and put pedal to the metal. Tim smiled inside, even if it was a very small one. He'd actually managed to jiggle the SFA out of a black mood before it set in, without him even noticing.

They arrived back at the Navy Yard in very good time, even without any of Gibbs advanced driving techniques, and heard the upraised voices as they entered the lobby. A young, slightly desperate voice in counterpoint to Adie the guard's much older one.

"Son, I'm not going to call anyone unless you tell me a bit more about what you want."

"My friend was murdered! I only want to talk to the person running the investigation – no-one else!"

"And you are?" Tony stepped up to ask, as if he didn't know. The young man, although not in uniform, was clearly a Marine; he was also about the same age as Jamie Hope, and a Native American. Besides, the SFA had seen that top and those jeans before. The boy glared at Tony, thought better of it, and subsided. "You're the guy who shot Alberta. That was a damn good shot," he said grudgingly.

"You're lucky I didn't shoot you – fortunately, I have this policy of not firing first."

"That's good, because I don't have a gun. But I'd sure like her back some time…"

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Private Black, right now the priority is to decide whether or not to arrest you. Alberta's for later. Anyway, I only shot her back tyre." He turned back to the guard. "It's OK, Adie, we know this guy. We'll take him up."

Adie rolled his eyes, produced a visitor's pass, and instructed the young man on how to go through the metal detector. Once he'd put the few coins and the ignition key that had been in his pocket in the tray, he stepped through the gate without setting it off. No knife.

Nobody spoke until they were in the elevator, and the two agents studied Tam. He came over on the surface as cocky, and in-your-face; but looking more closely they could see that he was holding himself firmly under control; this _was_ a man who'd lost his buddy. His best friend.

"I didn't do anything…" he said finally.

"Maybe you didn't," Tim said. "But wait until you meet the boss, and tell him." They stepped out of the metal box, and crossed to the bull pen. Gibbs looked up as they approached, and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

"This is Supervisory Special Agent Gibbs, Marine. Boss, this is Marine First Class Tam Black, and he wants to talk to you." Tony found the young man a chair, and Gibbs invited him to sit down with a nod.

"So what is it you want to tell me, son?"

The young man squared his shoulders. "It was me that tried to break into Jamie's apartment this morning," he said. "I was trying to get my painting. You'd think I should be curled up in a corner, distraught. I'd just been told my best friend was dead, and next thing I'm trying to break into his place."

"Did you know he'd been murdered?"

Tam's face twisted. "Yes, Sir. My CO came and found me in my quarters… that's something by itself, your CO coming to _you_, not sending someone to find you. I knew something was up. He was only just holding it together himself… he told me Jamie was dead, I asked was he murdered, and his face said yes before he tried to hedge."

"Why did you ask that?" Tony put in.

"That's what Colonel Moss asked me. It… it's hard to explain… our next posting is to the Adriatic, week after next… Hey, I was beginning to look forward to it because it'd mean the vultures who'd been hounding him wouldn't be able to get at him for a while. Man, it was past a joke. People he didn't want to deal with trying to get a piece of him… offering to be his agent, getting mad when he refused. Jamie Hope didn't _need_ an agent!"

"Was he being threatened?"

"I don't think he was_ threatened…_well, not physically… pressurised, sure – until after he painted The Rainbow Lake. Then things changed." He looked anguished. "It's my fault!"

"How's it your fault?" Gibbs asked.

"I _really _shouldn't have told anybody… Jamie warned me! I shouldn't have said what I intended for it… did Sunny tell you about the heritage centre? Oh, shit…Sunny! Is she all right?"

"She's safe, son. And yes, she told us. About the land, and your plans. Go on."

Tam nodded. "Please… tell her I'm thinking of her… I'll see her when I can. We're friends…" He took a deep breath and went on again. "Boy, I was so excited… I even took some Elders of the tribe to see the picture… my grandfather's brother, Keshowse was one. He's eighty-six, only five-foot-five, helluva guy…Jamie said I shouldn't tell too many people, and I should keep it safe. He said that when it was properly dry, he'd pack it up right, and I should find a really safe place to store it, like a bank or something, and leave it there until the project was finished. Hey, I was horrified! I said it was too beautiful to be locked away… he said I should be patient. I still didn't believe him… and then he told me about the phone calls… and said I wasn't to tell Sunny and frighten her…"

Nobody said "What phonecalls," they just waited. Tim brought a fresh bottle of water, as Tam fought to find the words. "Thanks…He struggled to tell me; I tell you, man, I'm struggling now… Stuff like, a mongrel had no right to set himself up getting himself noticed alongside good white people – a mongrel with a… a… I'll say darkie, that's bad enough but it wasn't what he said… mistress…Sunny's not like that – she and Jamie _loved_ each other…"

"We know that, son." Gibbs' face was dark, but his voice was level and calm. Ziva sat rigid in her chair, remembering times that she had encountered racism. Tony's jaw was stiff, and Tim found himself holding his breath until the young Marine spoke again.

"The guy said that smearing paint around didn't make a man, how could such a fairy call himself a Marine… What was he doing making pretty pictures for… for… savages who'd escaped being wiped out. If he ever came across any of his stuff he's smash it… and that _injun_ picture had better not ever see the light of day. If he ever finished it, he'd be killed. He should take a knife to it before someone took one to him. And it _was_ already finished… and now Jamie's dead…"

Tears splashed down the young Marine's cheeks, and he wiped them away fiercely with his sleeve. "He was my brother. My_ brother_," he said wearily, suddenly exhausted by grief and the effort it had cost him to tell his story. "He might have been a mongrel, and me a savage… but we had love… "

Ziva sighed. "The person who targeted you both, and Sunny, had none," she said tightly. "We _will _find him. So, you are saying that the first thing you did after hearing the news was to try to retrieve the painting."

"Yes, ma'am." Ziva didn't comment. "I couldn't just sit and cry. I didn't know it was NCIS in the apartment… I thought it was thieves. I ran because I was afraid I'd be killed too. I don't carry a gun, or even a knife. And then Hawkeye there shot Alberta… and I had to leave her there and run. I went back to quarters and thought, then decided to come to see you."

He leaned forward in his chair, pale, tired and earnest. He bowed his head and spoke to his knees. "I haven't done anything wrong…All I did was to try and get into my friend's home – where I've been hundreds of times. I used to have a spare key, but I gave it to Sunny… I didn't want you thinking because I was there… because I ran – that I… that I killed my friend. And I really…" He passed his hand over his eyes. "My picture's important. To me… to Jamie's memory… to my people… I suppose it's evidence at the moment. I just… I just wanted to ask you to take good care of it."

All four agents sat silently for a moment, looking at the weary, grief-stricken young man, struggling to find the gentlest way to make things even worse for him. In the end, he felt the tension in the air, and raised his head. He looked around them all, his gut going tight with apprehension.

"What?"

**AN: The racist phonecall part was hard to write. Such views are worlds apart from my own.**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: To the anonymous reviewer of 'Poisoned Poison… thank you so much; that was really kind!**

**More nasty Arthur in this chapter. Not much action, although we're getting closer, but a lot more info, and the last major new character. Hope you like him, TC!**

The Rainbow Lake

Chapter 5

Keshowse sat in the small boat and looked back at the cliffs. The young man handling the dinghy didn't disturb his thoughts, since he reckoned he knew more or less what they were. If great-grandfather didn't want to chat, that was fine. Once a week, Shawn would make a point of bringing the mentally agile, physically creaking old man out in the boat to this exact spot, because it was what the Elder liked to do.

He was happy to do it; the old man had a store of wisdom, and the wisdom to know that young people didn't want to hear all of it all of the time, so when Keshowse _did _speak, Shawn, and many others, listened. Besides, the lad thought, it does_ me _good to look at that land and remember. The old man shifted his position on the wooden seat, and Shawn stopped what he was doing and looked over.

"There are those who resist change because it _is _change," Keshowse said slowly. "Not all change is bad… but _this_…" he waved his arm regally at the steep green hills as they ran down into the sea, "This must not change." His great-grandson smiled, and looked at him fondly. "Wipe that grin off your face, you young whipper-snapper," the old man grumbled. "D'you want me to fold my arms and say I. Have. Spoken.?"

"Hah. You would if you thought the occasion called for it. But no, not to me, Gramps. You know that. I'm with you. I'd say most of the young people are. We don't want to see fancy houses up there."

"Even if they raise a lot of money?"

The boy shook out unruly dark hair, and his teeth gleamed against tanned skin. "Gramps, my pals aren't stupid enough to think that if that happened the tribe would see much of it. Anyway, I don't think money's the thing with us kids… we just don't want to see the land spoiled."

A slow smile crossed Keshowse's face. "Seems you youngsters have more sense than your parents, young Onxe… It's getting dark. Let's go home."

The Elder fell back into his own thoughts as the boat cut its way across the golden path that the setting sun made on the water. The problem wasn't sense, he thought sadly. So many of the older people had flung themselves vainly against the monolith of bureaucracy in the past, so hard that they still bore the scars, and preferred apathy these days. It wasn't that they didn't care; they just liked somebody else to do the work and make the decisions. Then if they turned out to be the _wrong _decisions, not only did they not get the blame, but they could say 'I told you so'.

He didn't know how long he had left in him before he went to the ancestors, but he had no doubt that his duty before he did was to act for the welfare of all the people, not just the few, and he believed that young Naantam's awakening had been a sign. There was a reason his brother had given the land to the boy and no-one else. If the Heritage Centre were built, its location would make it impossible for the would-be property developers among his people to realise their ambitions; and when Tam had shown him the painting, his old heart had leapt. It was symbolic, and the understanding of symbols was second nature to his people; it would become… his mind reached for the modern word… iconic.

He stared out over the bay, eyes not seeing the world for a moment. The artist had called Naantam a warrior, and so he was. The picture said that this warrior would become a great Elder one day, and be nothing but good for his people. Keshowse had seen so much change in his long life, and had tried to remember what he'd just told Shawn, 'not all change is bad'. But change, for his folk, usually meant loss, and it was time for it to stop.

Trevor Buckley sat in his pick-up truck, watching the kid's boat coming in towards the beach. He was parked between two sheds, thinking that this would make him unseen. (He was wrong; both the Elder and the boy knew he was there.) He observed how the young one jumped into the water, and dragged the front end of the dinghy up the shingle until it was stable, and the old man could step out without mishap. Everyone treated Keshowse with dignity; but not even his own nephew gave _him_ the same regard. And now the crazy kid had _killed_ someone. Things were going to hell, and he'd helped them on their way. He'd started four years ago, and it was because he didn't _look _like a Native American…

"_What d'you want to hang around here for, boy? Thought you were taking a vacation!"_

"_The children are __**ill,**__ Dad."_

"_They're injun children."_

"_They're children. And what they've got's infectious. Quicker we can find out what's wrong, the quicker we can put it right."_

"_They didn't ask you to help them!"_

_Patch Hastings had rolled his eyes. "That's only because they did't know I __**could.**__ You can go home if you like, Dad." (It seemed to Trevor Buckley that the younger man, and the patient young woman with the shiny new wedding ring wished he would.) "We're going to fix this."_

_The older man backed down, and went off towards his car, parked on the jetty above the beach, not far from where Buckley was parked now. As the son walked back towards the small school, it was the father that held the watcher's attention. He stood looking at the steep, wooded green hill, with its small patches of level land, as it swept down into the waters of the bay, and he wasn't admiring the scenery. Trevor had overheard the man earlier, talking about real estate in that penetrating tone that suggested everyone within earshot should listen to him, and he just knew somehow what the guy was thinking. The devil was sitting on his shoulder; he wandered over._

"_Often thought it'd be good to build a house up there," he said casually, "If the plots of land were big enough." The man stiffened, then saw what seemed to be another tourist._

"_Hell, I could build five or six up there." Buckley gave him a disbelieving look, that clearly needled the man. "Sure, I __**could. **__My company builds cantilevers, rock bolts, platforms… we anchor houses, military installations, observatories – to the sides of mountains. That –" he pointed to the hill – "That'd be a piece of cake. But I hear it all belongs to the injuns."_

_The way he uttered and pronounced the word made Trevor Buckley cringe, but he heard himself saying, "Yeah, and they don't want to change a damn thing." He almost expected to be struck dead on the spot for the casual denial of his heritage, but when the mountains __**didn't **__tremble, he went on, "I hear there's a few on the Tribal Council who'd like to make some white man's money…"_

And from that small exchange had come great ambitions. Arthur Hastings still had no idea that he was dealing with two Native Americans; a wannabe Elder – who also wanted to be rich, and his hot-headed nephew. He thought that the guy who dressed like a fading cowboy star, and lived in a one- storey shingle a mile or two away from he cliffs, was a good ol' boy like himself, who just happened to have the ear of a few Howa-whatever they were.

Buckley hated the man, but he loved the idea of being rich. He'd approved of trying to intimidate the young artist into leaving his picture unfinished, but he was terrified now of the consequences of murder. They had to see things through to the end, all the same, since the rewards for success would be great, but he had his bags packed, and money in an account in an assumed name, ready to run.

Now, he watched as the boy that his great-grandfather called Onxe; Fox, pulled a cell-phone from his pocket, and the old man shook his head fondly. But as the youngster listened for a few moments, his face became horror stricken, before he disconnected, and spoke to the Elder. Keshowse raised both hands to heaven, then brought them down, pressing his fists against his brow in an expression of grief. Buckley snarled to himself, and cursed Gary, not for the first time that day; he had no doubt what was the news the Elder had just received.

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

Tam put his cell away. He looked drained, and younger than twenty-one; like a small boy who longed to burst into tears but didn't want to be a softie. The agents sat silently, letting him recover from the agonising task of giving the message to Keshowse that his friend, the artist was dead, and his painting gone.

"What are we going to do?" he asked in the end.

Gibbs thought for a moment. "_We_ are going to follow the leads we've got. _You…_ are going to go back to quarters, and report to Colonel Moss. He's worried about you."

"But I've got to go to Virginia… I have to sign the papers to give the land to the Tribal Council, before we deploy again…"

"Er… about that," Tim said quietly, in a tone that got all their attention. He put a document up on the plasma. "You shouldn't sign, Tam. Not yet."

"I shouldn't? Hey, where did you get that?"

McGee looked a little embarrassed, but unrepentant. "Prefer you didn't ask that, Tam… But I _am_ doing this to help you, believe me. I checked it over because I had the feeling I should. Turns out I was right. D'you know who drew up this deed?"

"Er… a lawyer who does some work for the Tribal Council, I think. Why?"

Tim scrolled down, and then highlighted a sentence, and Tam read it aloud, his voice tailing away gradually in shock. "The purpose for which the land may be used, once given, may be changed if the Council deem this to be in the Tribe's best interest…."

"Tam," the young agent said urgently, "Do you usually read small print?"

"No," the Marine said, stunned. "I trusted them! I wouldn't give them the land if I thought they were going to do that!"

"Nice spot, McLawyer," Tony said wonderingly. "Guess some of them stuck that in when Tam and the others who want the centre weren't looking." He got up from his desk and went to stand by the Marine. "They had you pegged as a busy young guy, on the go, who _wouldn't _read the small print, who _would _trust them to take care of things, Tam. If you'd signed it, by the time your friends realised, it would have been too late." He paused. "The same people who were pressurising Jamie to destroy – or at least not finish – the painting, are going to be after you now to sign, you know."

Gibbs said firmly, "Which is another reason for you to be back in quarters, under the Colonel's eye. _Don't _ go back to Virginia… and _don't _sign anything."

Tam passed a hand across his eyes. "I was wondering how I was going to get there anyway," he said forlornly.

"You can have Alberta back," Gibbs said, "if you give me your word as a Marine that you'll go straight back to Barracks – and if you pay the bill Metro send us for bringing her here. You're the one that abandoned her…"

The young marine managed a grin. "I'll do that. She's going to be pretty mad at me, Sir."

Gibbs wasn't prepared to let that go a second time. "Don't call me Sir. I was a Gunny."

"Would have bet on it, Si – Gunny. I give you my word – I don't want to sign now… and there's no point in going down there to punch someone when I don't know who to punch. Besides," he added bleakly, "If they're mixed up in Jamie's murder, I'll want to kill them." He thought for a minute. "Can't ride her anyway… there's a hole in her back tyre."

"Abby's fixed that," Tim said, putting the phone down. "One of us had better follow you back. To make sure no-one else does."

"Ziva'll do it," Gibbs said. "Still need you on that computer, McGee. Get gone, Marine. We'll keep you in the loop, that's a promise."

Tam nodded. "Thanks, Si – Special Agent Gibbs." He couldn't say anything else, and Ziva led him off towards the garage where his faithful Alberta was waiting.

"DiNozzo – "

"Never assume. Alibis for both Sunny and Tam. Already on that. Information on the lovely Aslan O'Hare, Elders and lawyers of the Howakhan Tribe. Find out from Jamie Hope's landlord about other visitors; any relevant CCTV… see if Abby's got anything from his phone… and phone out for pizzas. There's something I'm missing out… maybe food will jog my memory."

On cue, Gibbs' stomach growled. "Pizza first, then."

Both young people had rock solid alibis, they discovered much to their relief, without having to ask them. Jamie's landlord and his wife, and a visiting electrician all confirmed that Sunny had been no further than the pigeon hole for her boyfriend's mail. And Tam had any number of young Marines to confirm that although the unit was on stand-down, when he wasn't in Virginia Tam remained in quarters, and had done so until he'd received the dreadful news from his CO.

The landlord also confirmed that Jamie Hope had had no visitors apart from Sunny.

"He went out very early, though," he confirmed over the phone. "I heard the front door, so I looked out of the window, and saw him driving off. What direction? Er, north I guess. Not towards the Navy Yard, anyway."

Local CCTV showed Aslan O'Hare's powder blue Merc driving past twice on the day before the murder, but it didn't stop. They'd have to ask him why, though. Gibbs read over the young artist's will again, but there was nothing there… the few paintings that were individual bequests, including one to the Colonel, a charcoal drawing of a Humvee with Marines kipping on top, inside, across the hood, and under it, were all accounted for in their custody.

Ziva returned with coffee; she was pink cheeked, and explained that as it was a very short distance from NCIS to the Marine barracks, she had ridden pillion on Alberta, a very nice bike, she said, to which Tony agreed. "VT750S, Boss. _Very_ nice." She'd walked back, and picked up the coffees on the way. The pizzas arrived a few minutes later, and after a while, fed and watered, they felt ready to go on again – but where?

After phoning Polly to see how Sunny was doing, and looking over the time line for the day, Tony realised that the murdered Marine had left his apartment far too early to have gone straight to Ohio Drive, to meet his killer. He tried following him on traffic CCTV; Tim saw he was struggling and came over to help him, but even with McSpycam's help, he lost him. Just to make things worse, there were no cameras at all on Ohio Drive.

"Damn…," (sigh) "Thanks anyway, McGee… but where the hell did he go?" If he knew that, he'd be out of here. He'd only been in the bull pen since getting back from the Hastings place, but he felt as if he'd been here for humdrum _hours_, achieving nothing. There were random dots in Tony's mind, and they were refusing to connect, in spite of the pizza.

Abby clumped in at that moment. "I can't tell you where he went, Tony… but I can tell you who he spoke to." She picked up the remote for the plasma screen, and brought up the feed from her lab. "And in some cases, who he _didn't_ speak to. This one belongs to an art dealer called Aslan O'Hare – can you believe that name? Can anyone be _that_ pretentious? I mean, somebody was, because his parents gave him that name… unless he gave it to himself, of course, which is twice as pretentious…"

"We met him." Ziva's tone said it all. "Does NA mean not accepted?"

"It does. You can see how many times poor Aslan _wasn't_ accepted." 

"Sunny didn't like him, and that's good enough for me," Tony said, and that was that for Aslan O'Hare for the moment, although Tim did amuse himself by imagining the guy driving up and down outside the apartment, vainly waiting for an answer. Something for a future book maybe; he could imagine Agent Tommy interrogating him…

"All the other calls are to, or from, his mates, or Sunny. In the hour before he died, he didn't phone anyone at all, not even Sunny. He never heard a friendly voice," Abby said sadly.

"Protecting her," Gibbs said. "He didn't want her to worry."

"There's only this one," Abby went on. "Incoming, eighty minutes before he was found. It's a pay as you go, unregistered, and it's the only thing that's different. I am _so _sorry, you guys… I know you were hoping I'd come up with something! Not a lot of use, unless you come up with something to match it with."

"No problem!" Tim suddenly shouted. Then he sighed and subsided. "Well… it's only one name…"

"One more than we had two minutes ago…," Tony said, trying to sound encouraging and not morose. What have you got?"

"I'm into Jamie's diary. This morning, there's that number, and beside it, just 'Gary."

"Hmmm. Nice work, people. Our killer has a name." They looked at the Boss in astonishment. Praise, this late at night. Gibbs threw his pen down, and _smiled._

**AN: If anyone's curious, the Native American names I used are borrowed from the Powhatan language. Howakhan means 'mysterious voice', and Keshowse is 'sun'. Sorry for any typos… I have read through, but I'm tired.**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Thanks, TC, for the wise observation, which I've shamelessly borrowed.**

**And thanks, Diana Teo, my 'sis' on the other side of the world, for her comforting words, and for talking me down, when last night, with no more than 200 words to go before posting, I hit lord knows what, cuz I don't, and lost the lot. 2,500 words. Sh** doesn't come into it. More than thanks, Di.**

The Rainbow Lake

Chapter 6

Trevor Buckley kicked the door shut behind him, and walked into the living room. He found his nephew sprawled on the sofa, toying with his knife. It was a Remington FAST, fairly new, with a black, ribbed handle and a highly polished blade with a serrated heel. It was an expensive, beautifully crafted, purposeful knife, and it had killed Jamie Hope.

"Ah… put that damn thing away, Gary," his uncle growled. Gary sulked but obeyed; Trevor did keep a roof over his head after all. "Where's Hastings?"

"He's gone." 

"Gone? What the hell d'you mean?"

The younger man shrugged. "He's a coward…"

"_Where's Buckley?"_

"_He's gone into the village, to see if anyone's talking about anything."_

"_Heh. Maybe you ought to think about going… getting out of here before they come looking for you…"_

"_Looking for me? They don't know who I am, man… I didn't leave any evidence."_

"_Don't be too sure. I've run into NCIS before -" Like yesterday, before he'd got back here to find everything had gone to hell, fast. "They're not stupid. I wouldn't bet on them not finding you."_

"_Finding __**me**__? You trying to make out I'm alone in this?"_

"_Well, hell," Hastings snarled, "All you were asked to do was find that painting!"_

"_By any means possible, you said! I tried to do it softly, but_ _**your**__ damn' phone calls had put him on the defensive! I pretended to be a friend of his pal, but he wouldn't let me go to his place. Said the painting was stored somewhere real safe, and anyway he didn't want his girlfriend to worry! I had to meet him miles away! He saw through me… talked about the house building plans… He __**knew! **__I panicked…"_

"_You __**panicked,**__" Arthur Hastings mocked. "You damn fool kid! Well, you can try that on the jury…"_

"_Hey – you can quit that damn talk! You think I'm taking the rap for this alone?"_

_Arthur heard the implicit threat, and lumbered to his feet, towering over the younger man. "You're sure as hell not taking me down with you, you stupid hothead… send a boy to do a –" He broke off as he felt something sharp against his belly. He looked down and recoiled. "Is that… that… get that __**thing**__ away from me!" He backed off hastily. Gary smiled, and came slowly after him, holding the knife at arm's length. "You're crazy, boy!"_

"_Yeah… just another crazy injun."_

"_Injun? You're one of them?"_

"_You are so __**dumb**__... yeah, me and good ol' boy Uncle Trevor… it's been good doin' business with you, Mr. Hastings."_

"_You dirty young bastard…" The string of profanities didn't stop as the bulky man stumbled out of the door. A moment later his car was driven roughly away._

Trevor Buckley looked bleak as his nephew finished.

"Kinda wish you'd killed him too," was all he said.

A few miles away, Hastings had pulled over to the roadside, and sat shaking with rage, fear and humiliation. Those two had fooled him… they had no right to pass for honest white folk… the kid had made him back down, shamed him… and if he ratted them out to NCIS his head would be right there on the block with theirs. He pounded the steering wheel in fury. He'd like to go back there and kill them both, but if they still managed to get the kid to sign his land away, (which he doubted now,) he still wanted that contract.

It had nothing to do with that knife that the kid had, and wasn't afraid to use… his narrow, self-centred soul shrivelled at the knowledge that he'd been shown up as a coward. Wasn't how this good ol' boy liked to see himself. The young savage was a killer… he had no right to try and make out that _he _was one too. He was going down for murder, and now Arthur had to make sure that he wasn't going with him. There were plenty of people who owed him their jobs… a few of them were in Maine right now, surveying a new project. And of _course_ he'd been with them all week.

He flipped his phone open, and paused, then brought up his son's number. No reason why he shouldn't get himself a decent meal, a shower and a comfortable bed before setting off back to Arkansas, after the crap motel that was the only place he could find in this God-forsaken heathen territory. He hated them all, and he was going to get even…

The phone rang for a while, but the answering machine didn't cut in, so he waited. No reason why they shouldn't break off whatever it was they were doing, to talk to him. Finally, a young voice said, "Hello?"

"Who the hell are you? You sound like a foreigner – you the maid or somethin'?"

The young voice began to stammer something, and Hastings heard his daughter-in-law's voice in the background. "Who is it, Sunny? You really shouldn't be ans-" He hung up with a muttered profanity. He knew who it was he'd been talking to, and he had an idea that spread a triumphant, anticipatory grin across his face. He put the car into drive, and screeched away.

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

If Tony was any judge, and he usually was, the man on the other end of the line was speaking the truth. If he'd been face to face with him, and he really had no desire to be, he'd have been in fear of drowning, the guy was spluttering so hard with indignation.

"I simply acceded to a request, Agent DiNozzo, to do something I have done before in running my business. I was offered a considerable sum of money to locate a certain painting."

"Who offered you that money, Mr. O'Hare?"

"The negotiations were carried out over the phone; I never met Mr. Harris."

"Ah." Tony firmly smoothed the 'really?' note out of his voice. "Did he specifically mention the painting by name?"

"He did indeed. He also said that it was the artist's last work. Up to that moment I had no idea that Jamie Hope was dead… a great shock. I was not… as you know, a dealer he trusted… but I'm not so twisted as to deny his talent because of that. A terrible loss…"

The big agent eased his frame in his seat, and made a sympathetic noise. "Then what happened, Mr. O'Hare?"

The spluttering began again. "I went to considerable time and effort… I was unsuccessful, but not from lack of trying. Mr. Harris called again; I said I had not been successful as yet. He was extremely rude, and refused to consider it when I asked for reimbursement for my efforts to date. The next time I was contacted it was a different person… nondescript… but the same result. I've heard nothing since."

Tony clicked his pen absently. "You said 'nondescript'. Do you mean that the first caller was_ not_? Can you tell me what you noticed about him?"

"His mouth," the art dealer said at once. "He was polite enough in the first call, although when he referred to Jamie Hope as 'mixed race', I heard something in his tone I didn't like. When he called back, as soon as he knew I hadn't located the painting, he became vile. He was contemptuous about the Native Americans, artists, Jamie Hope's ancestry, and my sexuality. Which, I might add, he was wrong about. I'm merely _professionally _camp." He paused, and Tony was glad he wasn't having to keep his face straight in front of the guy. "An older man," Aslan O'Hare said finally. "The second caller was younger, but maybe not young. And I'm no good on accents, I'm sorry. Nothing heavy that I could recognise."

Tony thanked him for his help, and disconnected. "Well," he said, "We can't get Mr. O'Hare for anything more than stupidity with a side order of greed. Our redneck again, an accomplice, not the killer. There was a second caller later, 'younger but not young'."

"How do you know the redneck isn't the killer?" Ziva asked, and Tony just grinned and waited for her to figure it out. "Ah. If you had been getting those phone calls, there is no way that you would arrange to meet the voice that had been making them."

"Right. The second voice may or may not have been the murderer, so we've got two or three people at least."

"So the redneck is actually cavorting with the very people he despises," Ziva said. The three men looked at each other bewilderedly, shuffling mental dictionary pages.

"Consorting," Tim shouted triumphantly.

"McSmartarse," Tony grumbled, while the younger agent licked his finger and drew a No.1 on an imaginary blackboard, and Ziva looked bewildered in her turn. "There's the dirt in the car, and the hunting knife," the SFA went on, frowning. "Circumstantial, but it still suggests that at least one Howakhan was involved."

"There'll be more," Gibbs said grimly.

"There's the lawyer who altered the document," Tim added. "And whoever put him up to it has to be one of the tribal Elders, because if they wanted to change the use of the land, only the Elders would have the power to do it. I'm going to find out who actually owns the surrounding land."

"We've got a conspiracy here," Gibbs said positively. "It surrounds the land use… some people want to use it for something that would make them a profit… only thing I can think of is building – "

"None of the flat bits are big enough," Tony reminded him. "They'd have to blast chunks out of the cliff, or build those cantilevered type platforms like in Hollywood."

"Would the law allow them to desecrate a beautiful piece of coastline by blowing holes in it?" Ziva asked. "I thought there were strict rules about that."

Tony frowned. "There are…" He turned his attention to his computer, hammering furiously, then swore. "I don't know where to look."

"Allow FFF to help," Tim said with a mischievous grin. "Which of a hundred subtexts d'you want me to track down?"

His friend returned the grin, especially delighted at the puzzlement of the other two. "Oh… try land laws in Native American sovereign territories. At least, I'm not sure about that word sovereign… I think that has to be recognition by the US government, and they're not… the Howakhan, I mean. But they _are _recognised by the State of Virginia…"

"How d'ya know that, DiNozzo?"

"National Geographic, Boss… you'd be surp-"

"Got it." Tim didn't raise his voice. "Was this what you were looking for? 'Where a nation is recognised by the State in which its lands are to be found, federal laws on the use of that land do not apply. All such use is controlled by Tribal Council or similar ruling body.'"

Tony whooped. "F.F.F.! It's one of the things that's been bugging me. When Sunny told us about Tam saying he'd give the land to the Elders, I thought, 'that's a good thing to do, because he could have done whatever he liked with it' – and then it went out of my mind. They _can _blow holes in that hillside if they want to. What's the betting some of them do want to do just that? Thanks, McObscurefactfinder… mind you, there's still something…" He frowned again.

"Let me know if you need any more FFF… meanwhile, I'll go hunting ownership facts… see -"

"No, don't do that," Gibbs said suddenly. "Much easier to ask. Grab your gear."

Tony whooped again. "Hey, we going to Virginia, Boss?"

The senior agent picked up his phone and dialled quickly. "Private Black… Gibbs. Tell me, son, is there any Elder you'd trust with your life? Beyond question? … Ke-who? Right. Yeah, I remember you mentioned him. Need to talk to him… Yeah, we're going down – hell, no! No, you can't. What? Yeah… OK. OK. Yeah, come here first." He disconnected, and looked across at his SFA.

"Yeah, DiNozzo, we're going to Virginia… answers are there, not here. We're going to talk to Private Black's great uncle, Keshowse. And young Black's coming with us. Says he can be useful!"

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

It had been more than an hour ago, and Polly hadn't been angry, but Sunny was still feeling guilty and contrite.

"I should have _thought…_ but it wouldn't stop ringing, and I didn't want it to wake Lucy…"

"I know. But if it had, we'd have got her back to sleep again. A bit of that young lady exercising her lungs is worth it to keep you safe. Did the caller say what he wanted?"

"He was nasty, Polly. He wanted to know who the hell I was, and he said I sounded like a foreigner, and was I the maid…"

"Ah," Polly said with a sigh. "My father-in-law." Her eyes grew remote for a moment.

"_O wad some Power the gifie gi'e us,_

_To see oursels as ithers see us;_

_It wad frae monie a blunder free us…"_

Sunny looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled. "Oh… it's poetry… I'd forgotten you teach it! Is it Scottish?"

Polly smiled. "Rabbie Burns… Scottish hero… he wrote some wonderfully philosophical stuff, all in dialect… I can't help remembering those lines whenever I think of Patch's father. I wish he could step back and take a look at himself through other peoples' eyes… maybe he wouldn't give us all such a hard time."

"I don't know how such a nice man as Patch could have such a horrible father," Sunny murmured sadly.

"Nor do I… but sadly, he's not alone in having to rise above his upbringing. Tony's been there too. Yesterday, after the christening, when the old ba – horror had gone – and he went off back to some business meeting and left his wife to find her own way back to Litle Rock – Spence took her to the airport; anyway, Tony sat out on the front step with Patch for half an hour talking him down. If he hadn't, my poor ol' man would have paced the house half the night trying to calm himself. Did my father-in-law hang up on you?"

"Yes…"

Polly hugged her. "Don't be afraid of the old grouch, and don't take it personally, Sunny. He does that if anyone but Patch answers the phone. He'd better not do it to Lucy in the future…"

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

The team had slept in the car in spite of Gibbs being at the wheel. He had turned over the facts as they knew them as he drove, wishing he could reach into DiNozzo's brain and jog loose whatever it was that Tony couldn't pinpoint. But the SFA lolled in the back, with Ziva snoring softly on his shoulder, while McGee, after a few heroic attempts to work on his laptop, had folded up over it until Gibbs pushed him back in his seat.

Nothing new occurred to the chronic insomniac team leader, as he followed the red glow of Alberta's tail light through the darkness, mile after steady mile, until he came down a road between two hills to a village by the water's edge, and followed Tam, as agreed, round the back of a small house, to park where the agency sedan would be less noticeable.

The team were instantly awake as the car came to a halt, and Tony glanced at his watch. A shade under two hours. No wonder young Tam looked exhilarated… The young man, who was in uniform for the first time since they had met, was about to knock quietly at the back door of the house, when it was opened by a lad of about sixteen, who greeted Tam with a grin and a hug.

"Shawn, these are the friends I told you about… Gibbs, this is my cousin Shawn… we say cousins cuz his great granddad and my granddad were brothers. Go figure. Come and meet my great uncle."

The man who rose stiffly to meet them as they entered the living room was short of stature, but commanded respect without demanding it. His hair was white, and long enough to reach the collar of his faded blue denim shirt, and his eyes were hooded, dark brown and twinkling. As Tam introduced them and they each shook the Elder's hand, the old man named them in his mind, although he didn't tell them yet. Tam would later explain that his great-uncle could show them no higher mark of respect.

"Uncle, this is Tony." _Boketaw…_

"Ziva." _Orei…_

"Tim." _Ningapo Asun…_

"And Gibbs." _Hah. Amonsoquath._

**AN: I'll tell you later what they mean, you can tell me if they fit! Review, anyone? Please?**


	7. Chapter 7

The Rainbow Lake

Chapter 7

Arthur Hastings pulled the brand new Honda Ridgeline to the side of the road in indecision, not for the first time that night. He'd phoned the leader of the team in Maine, and the guy was in fear for his job if he didn't co-operate; he'd also be responsible for all the other team members getting fired too, so that was that taken care of. Now, all he had to worry about was finding that painting. Once he had it, and could anonymously give the big hats in the tribe proof that he had, he'd see how much he could screw out of them for its safe return. If they wouldn't pay up, he'd happily send them photographs of it, first shredded, and then burning. Hell, he might take the money and then send them the photographs anyway. It was what they deserved.

It was a plan shot full of holes, if he thought about it rationally, but if you'd asked Patch Hastings if his father was rational, he'd likely reply bitterly that no-one could accuse him of that. But Arthur was just as foolishly unaware of the existence of the genius team of Sciuto and McGee as Gary Buckley was. He also hadn't any more clue than the young killer, of the implacability of the guy he'd accused just yesterday of some pretty salacious things, in the hallway of the house he was looking down at right now. Or his boss.

Looking at the lights glowing softly through the drapes, he wanted to go down there and bang on the door, swan in and demand to be put up for the night. But hell, that Asian kid would be in the spare room, and there was no way that Arthur Hastings was sleeping on a put-u-up in the living room. Besides, if they suspected anything… hell, no, they weren't that smart… but surprise would be best.

He patted the spare key in his pocket, that Patch had given to his mother in case she ever needed it. Arthur had said, "What's that?" and taken it from her as soon as he got the chance. No point trusting _her _with it… he'd come back in the morning. He drove the Ridgeline into a stand of trees out of sight, switched off and settled down to sleep.

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

"I sorrow for your friend, Naantam," Keshowse said, when all the formalities were over. Shawn was in the kitchen making drinks and sorting out rolls, butter and cheese, and cupcakes and chocolate cookies sent over by his Mom, as soon as she heard her grandfather was having visitors. She was sworn to secrecy, and prayed to the Spirits of the Winds, that this visit would bring an end to the squabbling that was tearing the Council, and her grandfather's peace of mind, apart.

Shawn shot his friend a grin through the kitchen hatch; most of the young people these days were known by everyday names; some of them cherished their Tribal names fiercely, others still feared ridicule. Tam no longer did, and he found himself enjoying the sound of his name as it rolled from his great-uncle's lips.

"Thank you, Uncle," he replied softly. "These friends I have brought will find justice for him."

Keshowse looked gravely at Gibbs. "And you think that justice will be found among the Howakhan?" he asked, lacing his voice with just a hint of disbelief. He had to be seen to believe in his people, in spite of what he knew about some of them. The blue eyed man saw straight through him, and the hint of a smile played in his eyes as well as around his mouth. "Elder," Black Bear, _amonsoquath,_ answered him politely; he had a voice that rumbled in his throat like a soft growl, and Keshowse knew he had named him aright. "We _know_ that you can help us to find the answers to many of our questions."

He explained what was known so far, the man with the hot, intelligent, green eyes sitting on his right filling in details from time to time. He was never still, this one; he burned from the inside with courage and determination. _Boketaw; _Fire. They were formidable, these two.

When they came to the end of their narrative, the third man, who had waited quietly, spoke for the first time, and Keshowse nodded gravely, in appreciation of the young man's patience.

"Elder," he said, picking up on Black Bear's form of address, "My friends – my colleagues," he corrected himself, and the old man smiled inside – yes, he had been right about this man too – "haven't told you yet the name we've discovered. It isn't a Native American name, but you've heard the reasons why we are asking you." He looked at the Elder with concern; it could be a family member or friend he was about to name. "Does 'Gary' mean anything to you?"

Young Shawn's gasp went with his great-grandfather's wince. The young man's look was apologetic but unshaken. _Ningapo Asun_; good man, friend of stone, good stone, he twisted it until it fitted. Yes… Friend of Stone. It didn't work in English, where stone wasn't a compliment, but it _was_ the young man. Solid, strong like the other two, and standing strongly beside them, less experienced, but true hearted.

"If it's any of us, it's him," Keshowse told Tim, and before the young man could speak again, he let go of the tiny remnant of disbelief he had been clinging to ever since Tam's phone call. "He respects neither Tribal law, nor traditions; nor the laws of the State."

The young teenager cleared his throat, and looked from the Elder to the blue eyed man. "Onxe, don't be afraid to speak," Keshowse said, and once again there was that flicker of a grin at Tam. If he was proud now of his Howakhan name, then Shawn was too. "He doesn't work," the boy told them. "He doesn't want to, and his temper is too bad for him to hold a job. The only one he listens to is his uncle Trevor, cuz he could throw him out if he didn't." Onxe took a deep breath. "He has a knife – a good knife, that is. He stole it, and a lot of other stuff, from a hunter's camp. He threatens younger kids; tries to get stuff from them. If it's him, I'm glad. Not because he killed someone… but it means he'll be taken away from here."

The boy fell silent, trembling slightly as he recalled unpleasant memories, and the woman rose from her chair and sat him down in it. He began to protest, but she said calmly, "It's fine. Please, sit." She went to perch on the arm of the sofa, next to the green eyed Fire. They exchanged a lazy glance, Fire and Ice. A cool, self-contained, beautiful woman, the Elder thought; unreadable and keeping herself hidden under frost. _Orei_; Ice. But only in the depths of a killing Winter would ice be solid and deep; and this Ice was on the surface, and would thaw when only she wished, as in her care for the nervous boy. Yet again the old man suppressed a smile. The sofa had two arms, but it was _not_ Black Bear's side she had chosen. Perhaps one day Orei would be melted by Boketaw; perhaps opposites could touch without destroying each other… he prayed that Ice would never freeze that Fire.

Black Bear growled, "Thanks for that, son. But we've no proof right now, and he's not alone... We don't know how many conspired to the murder, or how many are in the land scheme, hell, I'm not even sure if that's a crime, other than the alteration of the document."

"Legal are going to get back to me on that, Boss," Ningapo Asun said promptly. "They're also still trying to get names of individuals who acquired land up there personally, and by what means they did it, but that's probably not really NCIS jurisdiction. I just thought it might help to identify conspirators."

"Because we want them all," Fire said in a predatory tone that Keshowse couldn't help but approve of. After all, he had himself been a great hunter in his time.

NCISNCISNCIS

Word spread quickly; Naantam Black had returned to the village to sign the document giving the Tribe his land. The Elders should be there to honour him, and as many others as possible. It was late by now, but people began to gather at the school hall, which always doubled as the village meeting house. Shawn recalled, as he and his friends lent a hand to putting chairs out, erecting a dais and covering a table with a clean cloth, how he and three of those friends had lain here four years ago in makeshift hospital beds, when the room had become an isolation ward, while a young doctor on vacation had diagnosed and cured them of a virus he never wished to encounter again.

In the kitchen, Shawn's mother and a couple of friends clattered about preparing to make hot drinks for people who might wish to mingle afterwards. Her name was Kerry, but her grandfather called her _Attanqua: _Star. To him, she was. The ladies weren't alone in the room, but they worked good naturedly round the two men who were trying not to get in their way as they peered through the shutters.

Sitting at a side table were two young out-of-towners, studying the screen of a laptop. Tim, with a pair of Gibbs' reading glasses, and Ziva in a grey business suit borrowed from the resourceful Kerry, looked every inch the part of city lawyers. There were one or two curious glances, and one or two nervous ones; the two 'lawyers' and the hidden agents took note. They also checked that no-one was carrying a gun. This was always the risk at a public gathering, and the team weren't going to allow innocent people to be hurt.

The Elders arrived in their ceremonial dress; Tam cut a fine figure in his uniform. Keshowse, as Chief Elder, raised both arms to call for attention. He began to address the assembled people, first thanking Tam for his proposed gift, then speaking a little about the planned heritage centre. He explained that it would utilise the three level areas and not need any 'modification' of the cliff. It would also, as a museum that required safe access, legally preclude any other use of surrounding land.

"This," the old man said innocently, "is one of the things that Naantam's lawyers checked; that our laws are in agreement with federal ones on this point."

There was a murmur at this point; for the most part pleased, with one or two dissenting voices – the Elders were stone faced, and it was impossible to know which of them were happy and which weren't.

"Never mind," Gibbs whispered to Tony, alone with him in the kitchen by now. "The next bit should get them."

"Most of you haven't been involved in drawing up the document," the Elder went on cheerfully, "But you have a clear right to know the contents, since it will be your land; _our_ land, when the signing is completed. So I present to you Naantam's lawyers, Miss David and Mr. McGee, who are going to read the document to us." At the murmur of consternation, he went on just as innocently as before, "Don't worry, it's not long."

A relieved laugh went round the room, and for a moment, it looked as if that woud be that, until one of the Elders said irritably, "Oh, come on… is that really necessary? It's late, and some people have got out of bed to come here. Can't we just sign and be done?"

"We could, Nissacan, but it's Naantam's express wish that the whole of our people should be included. Is there a problem with the document?"

He could have said 'is there a problem with that', but at the mention of the document, Nissacan's eyes slid away and he stammered hotly, "No, of c-course not."

"Woo – liar, liar…" Tony whispered. "Still not proof though." He slid silently out of the door and took up a position at the back, between the audience and the exit. Nissacan wasn't the only Elder who looked at him in alarm. Those up on the dais were the only ones who could see him; Nissacan and one other male Elder were looking at each other in consternation. One female Elder was looking disappointed, but not alarmed.

"Please go ahead, Miss David."

Ziva read from the actual document, while Tim made a great show of following word for word on the screen of his laptop. The Israeli made the most of her exotic accent, and took care that her expression was interesting. She wanted people to listen to every word. Nissacan and his crony sat frozen, not knowing how to get out of this. The rest of the audience concentrated politely.

"'The land requires no modification,'" Ziva read clearly, "and none shall be made." That was logical to those who wanted the centre to be built. But a few heads jerked up in surprised annoyance, including Trevor Buckley and his nephew.

Tam looked round the room, at all the dissenters. "This clause was added later," he said calmly. "It seemed that stronger protection was needed." It had indeed been written in only that evening, with the intention of causing a reaction.

Ziva continued, with details on access, and then dropped her bombshell. "The use for which the land has been designated may however…" she began to show puzzlement as if she were seeing this for the first time, "…be changed if the Elders consider it to be in… the best interests of the people." She looked over at Tim, who was frowning at his screen in studied confusion. "This was surely not in the original draft…"

"No, it's not here," Tim said authoritatively. "It seems as if the document has been modified."

Tam stood up again. "I didn't say that!" He gave a good impression of angry surprise. "I never noticed that! I could have signed… I won't sign that, Keshowse. I won't sign something that's the exact opposite of my intention."

The anxious looking female Elder said placatingly, "It's only a precaution, Tam, in case the centre couldn't be built for some reason."

"What reason could there possibly be?" Tam asked angrily.

"I… I don't know… nobody suggested one… but if the centre couldn't be built… if houses were – it could be a condition that the contractor built a new school…" – she was the head teacher – "Or a medical centre… it could benefit the whole village."

The rattle of derisive laughter from Shawn and his friends, young people she had taught, made her mouth drop open, and caught her off guard as Keshowse asked sceptically, "Nobody suggested one, Paspasat? What did they suggest?"

"Only that houses would make more money and benefit the tribe…" her voice trailed away as she started to see what she'd done from the point of view of others. She wasn't a stupid woman, but she felt silly. "I… I've been led by the nose, haven't I? By empty promises…"

Keshowse looked grave. "Who led you, Paspasat?"

She looked across at another Elder, who stood stiffly, as did Nissacan. "Dan Hunt… Nissacan, and Trevor Buckley. Dan's lawyer did the new draft. But – we haven't committed a crime…"

Gibbs was leaning against the kitchen door so that no-one could go that way, and Tony stood at the entrance. Most people were just sitting, muttering angrily to each other, when Tim's voice cut across them all. "Not yet, but if Tam had signed, you would have done. We have the original and the altered drafts, and the dates they were made, so the altered copy would not stand up in court."

Everyone fell silent as he stepped up onto the dais. "We've also tracked down who owns other isolated patches of land up on the coastal hills. Dan Hunt's mother signed land over to him that she had originally willed to her grandchildren…"

"She changed her mind," Hunt yelled. "There's nothing wrong with that!"

"… and his lawyer states that he 'was very persuasive'. Trevor Buckley owns a plot to the east of Naantam Black's land."

Buckley jumped to his feet. "So what? I inherited it fair and square. It's fit for nothing… why shouldn't I build houses there? I've done nothing wrong!"

This time it was Ziva's voice that made the angry murmurs die down. "Legally there is nothing to stop you except the will of your people. But," and she eased the suit jacket away from her gun, "There is also the matter of murder."

The murmuring surged up again, and everyone in the room turned to look at Buckley

"I didn't murder anyone! You can't pin that on me just because somebody killed that artist! It sure as hell wasn't me!"

Gibbs growled, "How did you know it was the artist we were talking about unless you were in on it?" He held his badge up. "Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Everyone just sit down and stay calm. Trevor Buckley, you're under arrest for conspiracy to murder." He looked at the two guilty looking Elders as Tim and Ziva moved closer. "Clifford Bright, Brianna Nash, you're also under arrest. Same charge."

Paspasat just looked sick. Nissacan exploded. "I didn't kill anyone! I didn't _plan_ to kill anyone! It was that stupid kid Gary… we didn't tell him to kill the guy… we just –"

"Shut up, you damn fool," Gary Buckley shrieked, pulling his knife out, and waving it in a broad arc in front of him as Tam advanced towards him. "Get away from me…"

"You killed my best friend," he said softly.

"I'll kill you too…"

A hand tapped him on the shoulder from behind, and he looked round. Tam grabbed his wrist and bent it back, and Buckley squealed in pain. Tony took the knife without any effort at all. Tam pulled back a fist and hit the guy on the nose with all the strength he had. As he sat sprawled on the floor, a smiling NCIS agent stood over him.

"And _you,_ Gary Buckley," he said genially, "are under arrest for murder."

In the aftermath, things needed to be done, and it was getting on for two-thirty in the morning before everyone not involved had gone home, witness statements been taken, and LEOs called to take charge of the prisoners. Eveyone was borderline exhausted.

They were inclined to believe that Paspasat wasn't involved in the conspiracy, but they weren't going to let her off the hook until they were certain there wasn't a hook there. The other three had clammed up and were saying nothing at all, but the teacher was in such a state of shock that she couldn't stop talking.

"I didn't know that so many people were against it… my kids – the kids I taught – they were _laughing _at me… I was trying to do something for them… a new school would have… a few houses sprouting out of the side of the cliff… what harm would they have been… Dan said they had a constructor who could put them on platforms… with cantilevers or something, and they'd hardly have to blast the hill at all…"

The team hadn't been paying a lot of attention, until Tony suddenly went as white as his shirt, and almost staggered. Tim grabbed his elbow. "Hey…"

"Cantilevers…" Tony said in horror. "McGee, _cantilevers! _Miz Nash, you said they had a constructor… who was he?"

"I've no idea… they didn't like him much… racist…"

Gibbs had come over as soon as he saw the colour his SFA had become. "Boss… I don't believe this… at the christening… Arthur Hastings was bragging about his construction company… I wasn't listening… but that word. Cantilevers… it's _his_ firm. _He's_ our redneck. _And I sent Sunny to his son!_" He looked at his Boss in agony.

Gibbs didn't waste time saying 'are you sure?' "I'll alert LEOs," he said. "Tony, you couldn't have known…"

"Yes, I could. I've put them all in danger. _Lucy_… I knew there was something… Boss, I gotta go."

"I'm coming with you," McGee said.

Tam held out a key. "Take Alberta."

**AN: Nissacan: reed, Paspasat: morning. I'm running out of nouns!**


	8. Chapter 8

The Rainbow Lake

Chapter 8

The patrol car came slowly down the hill towards Sandybacks, and the first glimmer of dawn followed it. The dark grey Honda hidden amongst the trees went un-noticed, as it had when they'd stopped by just over an hour ago.

"All quiet again, Sarge," the patrolman not driving reported in. "We'll come back in an hour, but really, I think everything's under wraps here." A squawk from the radio confirmed that the sergeant was of the same opinion, and the police car turned and retraced its path over the hill. In the darkness Arthur Hastings laughed. So… he had an hour between visits – easy. He'd wait until it was a little lighter…

"_What the heck am I going to tell him, Boss?" Tony's eyes were frantic._

"_Whatever's best to keep them safe," Gibbs told him calmly, understanding that his SFA knew he couldn't have the reassurance he desperately needed. "Safe until you two get there."_

_Tim came over with helmets and warm jackets that various villagers had offered, wanting to help. Tam's leathers were too small for either man. As they tried them, he said tentatively, "You're certain he's going to do something, Tony…"_

"_Aren't you?" His friend looked at him hard. "Don't go by __**my**__ gut, Tim – what's __**yours**__ saying to you right now?"_

_McGee nodded, pursing his lips. "He doesn't know he's been caught. His ego wouldn't let him think we could get him."_

_Gibbs looked at them both. "We're keeping what happened here under wraps in case he's awake and watching the news. Better if he doesn't know we're on to him. Ziva got Buckley to admit that he'd been there today, drove off late evening after some sort of run in with junior. Gary threatened him, he ran. He could be anywhere; Abby's trying to find out if his car's fitted with a tracker, no news on that yet."_

_Tony almost hissed with impatience; only the support and grounding presence of the other two men kept him from exploding in his anxiety. "We know where he's going, Boss."_

"_Tony's right, Boss," Tim said. "If he's quarrelled with the other conspirators, he's thinking that the deal's off, so he'll be angry, and after getting even." Tony raised an eyebrow but didn't interrupt, waiting for him to go on. "I watched him yesterday…" he glanced at his watch; they were well into Tuesday. "Sunday… whatever… He's all ego and malice… if he can't have his houses and his contract, he'll want to do something nasty to make himself feel better."_

_Tony passed his hand across his eyes. "What better than the painting… and I'm afraid he'll convince himself that Sunny knows where it is. He'll go to Jamie's apartment first to see if she's there…"_

"_There's nothing to suggest he'll find out she's at Patch's, DiNozzo."_

"_I am afraid that is not true, Gibbs." Ziva's voice was soft as she hurried over. "Tony, __**I**__ called Patch…" She looked up into his face earnestly, ready to defend herself if he thought she'd taken on his job. _

_But Tony knew time was of the essence, and he'd stood there asking Gibbs what he should do, instead of just doing it. He didn't interrupt. Ziva went on, "He is not there. He was called back to work by SecNav's office to monitor and advise on an outbreak in a camp in Afghanistan. Polly says he will not be back until it has been contained." _

_Tony looked sick. "This is –"_

_Ziva held up a hand sharply. "No, it is __**not**__ your fault, Tony. We all thought it was a splendid idea to hide Sunny with them. And it was. Nobody could have known…"_

"_But?"_

_Ziva took a deep breath, and said steadily, "But Arthur rang the Hastings home this evening, and Sunny answered the phone."_

_The SFA might have crumpled on the spot, but for the strength of the team surrounding him. Ziva added quietly, "Polly was shocked, but not surprised if that makes sense, Tony. I advised her to make sure all the doors were locked, and I told her there was a police patrol keeping an eye on the area. She said she would try to contact Patch, but that it might not be easy. I have told her you are on your way."_

_Tony nodded silently. Head bowed, and shoulders hunched, he took a few deep breaths, and Gibbs waited until his chin came up again before putting his finger tips on the younger man's jaw and saying, "Get gone. We'll follow. And don't break McGee."_

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

As the light grew, Arthur Hastings cursed loudly to himself. He'd sat in his car half the night waiting for his son to leave, reasoning that he could intimidate a couple of silly women into co-operation and silence afterwards; his son, however, had been impossible to scare since the day he first realised he was big enough and strong enough to take his father on. What Hastings had conveniently ignored from way before that day, was that Patch had realised long before he was actually strong enough to stand up for himself, that if he straightened his back and looked his father in the eyes, the older man always backed down.

(When Patch had talked to Tony DiNozzo about it one time, he'd sighed, and said that unfortunately, one thing _his_ father _wasn't_ was chicken.)

Now, Hastings realised, the young man he'd waited for hours to avoid, wasn't there anyway. Or at least his Saab wasn't; only his wife's Vitara sat on the drive. Well, shit, he could have done this hours ago. He drove down the hill, and pulled up viciously alongside the Suzuki. He fumbled with putting the key in the lock, impatient with the ill-designed thing, and as he pushed the front door open, he heard his daughter in law's voice coming from Lucy's room. "Patch? Thank God you're back! Did Gibbs call you? I've been trying to reach you!"

That gave Hastings pause for thought. Why was she so relieved? Gibbs? What did she know? She emerged from the room, smiling, swathed in pyjamas and a huge towelling robe, and Hastings was furious to see how her expression went from pleased to shocked and angry in less than a second. How dare she look at him like that? Her opinion of him was written all over her unguarded face, as she growled, "How the hell did _you _get in here?"

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

Alberta was a cruiser bike, with the passenger seat set higher than the pilot's, so that both could see straight ahead and look at the scenery. Although there was no doubt that she was much faster than a car would have been, aerodynamically the position was no good at all for the sort of riding they were doing on a chilly night, and Tim hunkered down miserably behind Tony, trying not to distract his partner from concentrating on his driving. He had his earjack in place under the borrowed helmet, and got updates from Gibbs from time to time, but there was nothing much to report other than that they were following, Tam Black was with them, and they didn't know where Hastings was. His car tracking device was either switched off or disabled.

Tim sighed. If it was cold for him, at least he had a bit of shelter behind his friend; he doubted however that Tony was thinking about the cold at all. The Howakhan people had brought gas and refuelled the bike, and sent them on their way, using the names Keshowse had given them in farewell. Since it meant Tony didn't have to stop during the approximately hundred and twenty mile journey, Tim was sure he wasn't going to. And as if he'd read his mind, the Senior Field Agent pulled over. He flipped up his visor and turned.

"Y'OK, McGee?" His voice was steady enough, although Tim recognised the same tremors of cold and tension running through his frame that he was feeling himself.

"I'm fine, Tony."

"That's my word. Y'can come up front if you like, but it's no warmer."

"Not unless you need the break. You're used to her now. Only 40 miles or so more, I reckon… I've seen police cruisers, but no-one's stopped us. You think that was Gibbs warning them off?"

"Most likely. Has he said anything?"

"Nothing to report. They're way behind."

Tony nodded, and although his face was largely hidden by the helmet, Tim saw the pain before he turned back.

"Zi's right. It wasn't your fault," he yelled close to his friend's metal clad ear, and Tony turned back to him for a moment.

"Thanks, McGee. But we still gotta put it right." Alberta went roaring into the dawn.

Twenty minutes later, they tore down the hill to Sandybacks, and skidded to a halt outside the Hastings' bungalow. "Ah, shit," Tim muttered; he'd been able to remove his helmet before Tony did, and he drew his gun and was running almost before they stopped. The front door was open, and Polly Hastings lay face down on the hall floor. They cleared the house frantically, with Tony rushing to Pol as soon as he knew Tim no longer needed his back-up. As he found her pulse, and checked for other injuries than the contusion on the side of her head, muttering quiet, desperate encouragements all the time, the younger agent came back into the hall and dropped to his knees beside them.

"They're both gone, Tony." His face was anguished, his voice so soft his partner almost had to read his lips. "Sunny… and Lucy." The senior agent closed his eyes and took a deep breath; he groaned silently; they both tried to calm their crashing hearts.

"O-kay…first things first." He turned Polly onto her uninjured side, and pulled a cushion from the short oak bench beside the phone. As he put it under her head, McGee reached for his cell. You calling the EMTs?"

As Tim nodded, Polly said suddenly and sharply, "No! No ambulance!"

"Sweetheart, you're hurt… you need –"

"I _need_ not to be shuffled off to some hospital and told nothing, while my _daughter_ and young Sunny are out there with that wicked old loon!" Polly pressed her hand to the side of her head, and grabbed Tony's arm with her other hand to heave herself up. He tried to make her lie down again, remembered that this was a tigress whose cub was threatened, and gave up, instead making himself into a chair-back for her. Tim put his phone away and went into the kitchen, coming back a moment later with a pack of something frozen wrapped in a teatowel, which she took to hold against her head.

"Fair enough," Tony said calmly. "Pol, d'you feel up to telling us what happened?"

Polly let out an involuntary sob, then got herself under control again. "With or without the racist comments, or the bigotry, or bad language? I tell you, Tony, when you catch up with him I am going to slap him round his dirty chops so hard they'll have to wire his jaw…"

Tim squeezed her free hand encouragingly, and Tony murmured "That's my girl," grinning in spite of himself.

"He let himself in," she said furiously. I should have barricaded the door. Patch gave his mother a spare key… should have known he'd just take it from her. Poor woman never could stand up to him… I don't know how she's survived this long. He yelled 'where's your house guest', and as soon as Sunny appeared, he grabbed her wrists and started yelling about 'where was the painting'. When Sunny kept insisting she didn't know, he told her she was going to find it then. He made her go and get dressed, and I kept telling him to stop yelling, he'd waken Lucy, and to get out, but he just said she was going with him to 'that artist poof's' apartment. He started to drag her to the door, and Lucy heard the noise and started crying, and I threw myself at him. He shoved me off, hard enough to knock me off my feet. I think I banged my head on the bench, but I'm not sure. I remember feeling very sick, and Sunny yelling something, and then, nothing."

She thought for a moment. "He won't hurt Lucy… she's the only thing he's got any time for other than himself. But I'm so worried about Sunny… "

"Does she know he won't hurt Lucy? Could he be using her as leverage? Or…" Tony screwed his eyes shut for a moment. "Pol, d'you suppose she thought you were dead, and didn't want to leave Lucy alone?"

Polly clutched her aching head and groaned. "Is the car seat still in my car? And… there's a turquoise canvas baby travel bag in Lucy's room…" Tim reported a few moments later that both items were gone. "I guess Sunny was in charge when they left; at least where Lucy is concerned." She made a move to stand up. "So where are we going?"

"Stay down, sweetie. _You're_ not going anywhere."

"_Neither are you. Maryland State Police. Freeze!"_

Tony looked at the two patrolmen in the doorway, and rolled his eyes with a disgusted snort. "Wonderful. Where the hell were you when you were needed?"

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

Gibbs, Ziva and Tam had left only a few minutes after the two on the motorbike. Gibbs hadn't wanted to take Tam, but he couldn't use the protecting a civilian thing against a young Marine. In any case, as Tam pointed out, he couldn't get back to DC without Alberta.

"I had my fun breaking Gary Buckley's nose," he said darkly, "And I won't get in your way, but I want to be there for Sunny." His tone seemed to say a little more than his words, and Ziva turned in her seat and looked at him enquiringly. He smiled, a little tightly. "I'm not languishing in love with my best friend's girl, Agent David. But I _do _like her a lot. Enough to stay away from them when they were together, because I _did _envy him… I'll be there as a friend, even if it's only long distance; one way or another, if she needs me, I'll be there. Maybe one day something'll come of it…"

"Semper Fi," Gibbs murmured to himself, and the young man nodded.

"You got it, Gunny. Semper Fi." His cell phone beeped, and he scrambled for it in his leather jacket, beside him on the seat. "Haven't had time to think about this… guess my friends will be wanting to know what's going down. Messages… texts…" He was going into the relevant box as he spoke, and his voice tailed off.

"What is wrong, Tam?" Ziva asked gently.

"There's one here from Jamie…" Tears suddenly welled in the young man's eyes. He blinked to focus, and then said "What…" in puzzlement. "He says, 'Had enuff, G1 home 2 mother'. Why would he say that? His parents are both dead…"

Gibbs screeched the agency sedan to a sudden halt, and turned in his seat. "Gone home to mother? _Home?_" He flipped his own phone open.

"_Boss? I was just about to call you. We got to Glenelg –" _Gibbs listened with mounting anger as Tim brought him up to date.

"But Polly's OK?"

"_She will be, Boss. The medics are checking her over, but she won't go to hospital."_

Gibbs huffed. Once again, DiNozzo and McGee could get where they needed to be a lot faster than he could. He had to trust them, and be there for Polly instead, while they got her daughter back.

"Tell her I'm on my way. And tell those LEOs to make themselves useful and stay with her until we arrive or Patch does. Director's trying to reach him. You need to get back on that bike and head down to McLean."

"_McLean… what… Jamie's parents' place! OK, Boss… why's that?"_

"Because, McGee, that's where the painting is… and if Sunny's smart enough to figure it, that's where Hastings is headed. There's a BOLO out, but no reports so far."

Tam looked at Gibbs in astonishment. "So he was telling me where he'd hidden my painting?" He thought for a moment. "It might have taken me a while to figure it…"

"Place belongs to Sunny now. She'd have figured it. She probably has. Leave it to DiNozzo and McGee… we've got to help Polly first."

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

It took Tony and Tim not much more than half an hour to get from Glenelg to locate the house in McLean; it stood alone at the end of a longish drive rutted by construction vehicles. The building looked sorry for itself; although it had a sturdy central chimney, the roof, held up all along one missing wall by tall pillar jacks, slouched down at an angle that made it look like an old hat. Strong tarpaulins covered the gap between the intact part of the house and the construction site, there was a portaloo, two large but battered sheds, a dumper truck and a cement mixer. It was too early for the contractors to be about, and the place appeared to be deserted, but the two agents drew their guns anyway.

A brief walk around the site told them little, and they pushed the tarps aside and entered the house. There was some furniture , old stuff that Jamie probably hadn't thought was worth putting into store; when the builders moved on to this part of the house, it would probably go into a dumpster or on a bonfire, and it stood dusty and forlorn, resigned to its fate.

They looked everywhere obvious, and were thinking that maybe they and Gibbs had got it wrong, and the only person who was right was Arthur Hastings, who wasn't there. Tim decided to look in a high cupboard, and began to drag a coffee table across the room to stand on, when he saw Tony stiffen. He stopped, and heard it himself… the sound of a furious baby exercising healthy lungs.

Lucy! Both agents began to dash towards the tarpaulins and the outside world; neither one got there before the house collapsed around them – and on them.

**AN: Oh, how I love a cliffie…**


	9. Chapter 9

The Rainbow Lake

Chapter 9

Sunny was fed up of being afraid. She was fed up of the volume of this horrible man's voice; fed up of the spittle that flew from his mouth, fed up of his opinions and the foul language he laced them with. She was fed up of the names he was calling her, that made her scalp crawl and left her feeling in need of a wash. She was sick of the things he was saying about Jamie, twisting the knife uncaringly in her grief. She'd had enough of hearing him bad-mouth the brave and kind woman he'd left crumpled on the floor in the lobby of her home…

She was fed up of the way his shouting and his driving made Lucy whimper anxiously, and the fact that all she could do was whisper to the baby in her carrying chair and rub her hand to comfort her. Taking her out of the chair and cuddling her was a non-starter, the way the truck was being driven. She was glad she was in the rear seat with Lucy, and not sitting next to Arthur Hastings, as he couldn't turn round and look at her without risking losing control of the vehicle. Not that he didn't from time to time anyway.

"There's no point in going to Jamie's apartment," she said for the fifth time, in response to his latest tirade. "I was there when NCIS took everything away. The place is empty."

"I've told you before, don't lie to me, you little…"

Sunny stopped listening. She was _really_ fed up of being afraid, and she wasn't going to just sit here and put up with it. "All right, fine, _go_ there, then! Please, do! It's a crime scene, it's taped off, they're watching it, and you'll get arrested!"

That silenced him for a few minutes, and she thought frantically. She was sure he wouldn't hurt his own grand-daughter, and she herself was safe, she thought, at least until the Rainbow Lake was found… maybe beyond that, since Hastings hadn't a clue how to actually deal with Lucy, so he'd have to keep her around. She bit her lip as she stroked the dozing baby's hair… she wasn't sure if she could figure how the guy thought by using normal parameters. He _was _a bully, and, she suspected, a coward – (when she had yelled at him that they weren't leaving Lucy with her _dead_ mother and no-one to care for her, he'd given way at once,) and he _wasn't _thinking things through logically.

She didn't think Polly was dead… she _prayed_ that Polly wasn't dead… she screwed her eyes up as she remembered how she had crashed against the wall, and how Hastings had taken two uncertain steps backwards as she fell and didn't move, ready to flee the scene rather than face what he'd done.

She could think of a dozen reasons why he wasn't going to get away with what he was threatening – from the MCRT, through Tam Black to the entire Howakhan nation – but he clearly couldn't see beyond the moment. There were bottles of beer rolling around beneath the driver's seat, clinking irritatingly, and she wondered how many of them he got through in a day. She wondered how he was ever able to run a successful business…

She stopped her mind from wandering off at a tangent; she had to work things out before he started yelling again and shot her concentration to pieces. She had to find a way to stop him before he actually _found _the painting and carried out his threat. He was more than twice her size, so taking him on physically wasn't an option… She wondered where the others were… Tony and the rest of his team were hunting Arthur, she knew this from Ziva's call to Polly, but did they know where to look? Where would _she_ look? Where would Jamie have hidden it? Tears welled up in her eyes, and grief seized her heart in an iron grip as she thought of him… _Parvati, goddess of valour, give me strength…_

A whisper in her mind; the ghost of a thought, and then she knew, just as if her love had spoken gently in her ear.

If she realised, then surely Tam would have too… she had to believe that, because if not, she had nothing else to believe in, and she couldn't find anything to hope for.

"What the hell you crying about?"

"You killed Jamie," Sunny said through her teeth.

"I didn't kill anybody," Hastings exploded, and followed the words with a stream of profanities.

When he finished, the girl went on, so quietly he had to strain to hear her. "They've got your friends, and they're coming for you, too. You go to Jamie's studio, they'll be there. And the painting won't."

"You know where it is, you damn –"

She cut him off before he could find more names to call her. "Yes, I do." "She looked him in the eyes in the rear view mirror. "And if you want it, the first thing you've got to do is stop shooting off your mouth in front of your grand-daughter."

That provoked a laugh, and another mouthful, but this one stopped in mid flow when he actually_ heard_ what she said. "If I _want _it? So you're gonna tell me?"

"Lucy's getting hungry," she told him wearily. "Head west, to McLean. Old Dominion Drive." She started hunting in the baby travel bag for a pack of the emergency formula, and the battery-powered sleeve for heating it.

Lucy was beginning to fret in earnest now, and her doting grandfather began to throw impatient glances over his shoulder "Can't you do something about that?"

"Not until we get there. I can't take her out of her seat until we stop." Ten minutes later she directed him to a rutted gravel track that went uphill. Lucy protested loudly at the rough ride as the Ridgeline bounced in the potholes. Hastings slowed right down, and just for a moment, Sunny thought he was being considerate to the unhappy baby, but it turned out he was simply being cautious. As they came to the top of the hill, he switched the engine off and coasted to a halt.

Sunny lifted Lucy out of her seat, and opted for feeding her first, rather than changing her, while Hastings, without a word, got out and went to look down the hill towards the house. A few moments later he was back, cursing under his breath.

"You devious little bitch! You knew they'd be here! You brought me here because you knew…"

"Who's here?" The teenager tried to keep the grin off her face, but her heart had leapt at his words, and it took all she had to conceal her joy. She concentrated on the baby in her arms.

"NCI freaking S - I just saw two of them going into the house… you knew…"

"No, I didn't. But I'm not surprised…" His face went red, and she thought he was going to hit her, and curled herself protectively round Lucy. Hastings glared, threw himself into the driver's seat, let the hand brake off and rolled the FWD silently down the hill. Sunny wondered what he was going to do, and he stuck his finger under her nose. "You keep quiet. You keep real quiet, if you don't want me to choke the daylights out of you." He put one hand round her throat to make his point. "If you make a sound I'll take that baby and give her to my friends in Mexico, and her father'll never see her again, you got that?"

Sunny nodded soundlessly, her eyes full of tears. She didn't believe the man had _friends_ anywhere, let alone Mexico, but she couldn't be _sure_ he wasn't lying… he'd take little Lucy away so that Patch would never know what became of her? Surely not even he… she'd never been so afraid in her life. She hugged the feeding infant close, and fought for calm.

By the time her blurred vision had cleared, Hastings was out of the car, moving quietly, for him. The electric winch on the front of the vehicle was whirring softly as the hawser payed out. Sunny watched in horror as she realised what he was doing. He looped the cable round two of the jacks holding up the corner of the house, then hooked the end round itself in a noose. No… He was coming back to the car with a pleased look on his face…

As he reached for the winch control, and the cable began to tighten, Sunny knew she couldn't let him do it. No matter what he did to her. She pulled the feeding bottle out of Lucy's mouth, and the little girl howled in outrage. On the still morning air, it was really loud, and Hastings swore violently and leapt back into the truck. Sunny didn't hear what he called her, her head was reeling too much from the punch in the face he gave her. As she fought to stay conscious and not drop Lucy, he fired up the engine, slammed into reverse, and shot backwards so the two pillar jacks were yanked out from under the roof, and just how dependent the house had been on them became immediately clear, as the battered old hat of a roof tore itself away from the chimney and collapsed.

Arthur Hastings sat laughing like a maniac, not even noticing when the winch finished winding in, and the two jacks hit the front of his brand new Ridgeline, hard.

A moment later, the laughter stopped abruptly, as a full beer bottle rebounded off his skull.

"Bastard!" Sunny was sobbing, driven beyond endurance, as she waited to see if she had to do it again. Hastings toppled sideways out of the car and lay still. "Bastard, bastard, bastard…"

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

As the roaring, tumbling chaos died down, (it didn't actually stop, Tim was aware of residual creaks and groans like the aftershocks from an earthquake,) the young agent took stock. There was some light coming in, through mis-shapen holes in the wreckage that surrounded him – pale green light, reflected off the ravaged tarpaulin. No pain. Er, wow. Well, not much anyway… but weight. Across his arms, shoulders and chest. Heavy… he pushed tentatively, and realised that although he thought he _could _ free himself, it was going to take time. He needed some help.

"Tony?"

There was no answer, and Tim twisted his neck, really the only part of his upper half that was free to move more than a twitch. A few feet away, in what was left of the living room, now only about four feet high, he could make out the top of his friend's head, and one outflung arm.

"_Tony!"_ He tried louder, and more urgent. "Tony, wake up! We've got to get out of here!"

The house confirmed he was right, by giving another shudder. Tony didn't react at all, and Tim began to seriously worry. The shattered chunks of ceiling plaster, with their ghoulish pale green tinge, that surrounded Tony's head didn't look as if they could do much damage… until he reflected that until they'd hit the SFA they hadn't _been _ shattered.

Tim's neck hurt from being twisted round for so long, and he had to turn his head back for a moment; he wished he hadn't. As if the two four-by-four beams with attached board and plaster, wedged firmly at both ends and holding him down weren't enough, there was another one hanging at an angle above his head, and every so often, it moved. Downwards. One end was already on the floor, sliding outwards whenever the wrecked house settled a bit more. This meant, Tim saw with alarm, that the gap between floor and beam was shrinking all the time – with his neck in the angle.

He struggled frantically to free his arms, but he knew he'd never do it in time before that beam came down, crushed his larynx, squashed his windpipe, and generally… killed him.

Why was he being so flip about it? Panic, McGee! No, he didn't think he was the type, and he'd never seen the man lying silent a few feet away give way to hysteria either; now wouldn't be a good time to start. He tried to wriggle his head round a little, but there was no position he could find that wouldn't have the same result. The house shifted again, and the beam dropped a little lower. A couple more shifts like that and his neck would be scissored… one more and he wouldn't have the breath to scream.

A low groan from Tony made him twist his head round again. His friend had rolled onto his back and flung an arm across his eyes.

"Tony! Tony, wake up!"

"Wha…." The Senior Field Agent rolled onto his side, and looked for all the world like he was settling down for a good sleep.

"Tony, _don't_! Come on, man, wake up! I need you here!" Tim kept up a continuous stream of encouragement, urgency turning to desperation in his tone. His heart was crashing; he wasn't a coward – the idea of dying on duty was something he shrugged off regularly, but _this_ way?

Tony could hear something that was possibly a familiar sound; he wasn't sure. Something was addling his brain; thoughts were like needle points of light that twinkled then died. The sound was stronger, and persistent, it buzzed like a gnat in his ear. He supposed he had to move, and hung on to that thought. He pushed himself up onto all fours, but couldn't for the life of him lift his head, which hung between his arms. It _hurt_. So did his arm, a nagging, smarting, irritating sting. But he needed to hang onto the pain, because at least it meant coherent thought…

Tim watched him, calling encouragement, as the beam shifted again. It was against the side of his neck now, and the next shift would leave him suffocating, but still Tony wasn't coming round properly. Desperate measures… he let a manufactured rage into his voice.

"For freaks sake, DiNozzo! Will you stop pratting about like you've got all the time in the world? Typical you – take your time, suit yourself, hakuna ma-bloody-tata, never mind that I'm frig'n dying here! Don't you _ever_ take anything seriously? You think this is a joke? You never –" The weight of the four-by-four against his throat was terrifying, as it cut off his voice and his breathing.

As he grew light-headed, he saw Tony's head come up. A pair of glassy green eyes blinked, then filled with horror. The SFA exploded across the gap between them in an undignified scramble on all fours, threw himself down low and wriggled under the beam at its highest point. When he'd got his shoulders underneath it, he pushed his back up again, and heard the rasp as Tim grabbed air back into his lungs. He looked sideways.

"You OK?"

"Yeah… Tony… I didn't mean…"

"I _know._ What the hell are we going to do now?" The beam tried to shift again, and he grunted. "Just call me Atlas… can you see anything to take my place here? Like, within reach?"

There was nothing like a hefty dose of peril to focus the mind, and he was thinking fast. The beam wasn't horribly heavy, but he sure couldn't stay here for ever. Trouble was, if he left McGee got it in the neck, literally.

"The coffee table," Tim rasped. "It's just behind you, to the left. No… just beyond your arm… you might hook your foot round… bit further…"

Tony almost sobbed with relief as he felt the table begin to drag behind him. A moment later his hand found it, and he pulled it alongside himself. He pushed his back up a little more, turned the table on its side, and lowered himself down until it took the weight of the beam instead of him. Letting out a groan, he curled up into a ball for a moment, wrapping his arms round his head, and Tim said anxiously, "Tony…"

"It's OK." Bent double in the four feet of space, he climbed over the beam and knelt alongside the debris pinning Tim down. "If I lift can you wriggle?"

"Should think so… but it feels pretty solid."

"K… if you need me to stop, say."

He lay on his back and began to kick the debris with both feet, and Tim suppressed a yelp as it dragged across his lower ribs, before a chunk suddenly fell away, and the weight on him was halved. "I got it, Tony… I can move. I'm free… Tony, you can _stop_ now… Tony, STOP!"

That got through. DiNozzo's frantic kicks ceased, and he lay on his back, chest heaving. He saw Tim looming over him in the green gloom.

"You OK, McWoody?"

"I'm not the one who's on my back." He rubbed his neck. "Gonna have a helluva bruise… few more on my ribs… don't feel too bad for a dead guy, though. You?"

Tony looked at his right forearm with distaste. "I picked up some splinters," he said, trying to use his left hand delicately enough to pull them out.

"Let me do it," Tim said "I reckon I can see better than you just now anyway." He grasped his friend's arm gently, and picked out a few toothpick-sized chips. "Tony… you know… I really _didn't_ mean it –"

"We just had this conversation. I didn't know you knew some of those words, McClean… and yeah, I know. We need to get out of here, Tim… need to find out what happened. I could swear I heard Lucy crying…"

"Yeah, I heard too. Guess we'd better move… d'you need help to sit up?"

He reached down to put his hands under Tony's shoulders, but the older man said, "No, wait…"

Tim followed his friend's peering glance in the dim light, and saw that he was looking at the bottom of the coffee table. His eyes widened, and as Tony tried to lurch forward again, he said, "No, I'll do it," sharply enough to make the SFA stay where he was. He got his shoulder under the beam that had nearly killed him, and hooked the table from under it, much as Tony had done in reverse, and dragged it back to his friend.

"Good spot," he said wonderingly.

Tony grinned lopsidedly. "Two days ago neither of us had ever heard of glassine paper," he said. "Let alone wondered what it's doing underneath a coffee table."

As Tim gently lifted the flat rectangle in its grease and water resistant paper wrapping from where it had been taped under the table, he said softly, "Would you still have used the table if you'd known this was under it?"

"What… risked a million dollar painting to save your neck, McGee?" Tony's smile was peaceful. "Every time."

**AN: One more to go… 'scuse typos… I'm going gozzeyed as they say where I come from.**


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: Nagging Cube, I managed to get your idea in… hope it's not too contrived. And thanks!**

The Rainbow Lake

Chapter 10

Dougie McLeish was good at his job because he took that extra bit of care. Which meant, among other things, that he liked to be first on site in the morning, before the rest of his construction team arrived. Now, the foreman sat in his big, muddy GMC at the top of the hill where Arthur Hastings had sat not half an hour before, scratching his head in bewilderment. Not to mention horror.

The battered pantile roof that he'd left carefully propped up with secure jacks last night, now sat skewed on the ground, one side of it held up a little by two walls of the house which appeared to still be intact, so that it looked like Robin Hood's hat, set at a rakish angle, the chimney sticking up through it like an absurd feather. Dougie blinked away the ridiculous notion and brought himself back to reality – whatever had happened, what was left was only fit for the bulldozer, he thought incredulously.

He moved forwards slowly, crunching first gear of the standard transmission box a little in his shock, and rolled down the hill. His amazement was doubled when he reached the yard… his pillar jacks lay bent and bowed, beside a truck he didn't recognise; sitting on the ground in front of the Honda, securely tied up by its winch cable wrapped many times around him, was a large man, red in the face and almost apoplectic with rage.

"Hey, friend! Glad to see you! Crazy girl's tied me up… can ya get me out of this?"

"No, _don't!_" another voice, one he recognised, said frantically. "He pulled the house down… he trapped two –"

The man on the ground began to yell. "She's crazy, man… you goin' to take the word of a –"

As his language degenerated into its usual pit, the foreman frowned, and kicked the sole of his boot hard enough to make him yell and shut up.

"Hey. Don't want to hear that crap on my site. I _know_ this little girl, mister." He moved Sunny's face slightly to inspect the bruise on her cheekbone, and the angry marks left by heavy fingertips on her neck. "What happened here, Sunny? Did _he_ do that? And is that a _baby_ I can hear crying?"

"I'll explain, Dougie… but you have to hurry… there are two men trapped inside the house…"

After that things seemed to move in slow motion for Sunny. Another truck came over the hill as the foreman made his plans, and the girl moved in a dream as she went back to pick Lucy up and comfort her, walking around behind the vehicle so she didn't have to pass Arthur Hastings. She could see Dougie crouched by the wrecked house, yelling something as his gang piled out of their pick-up, and they went to work efficiently. They used a fork-lift to lever up a section of the roof near the chimney, brought up a digger and moved the bucket under the raised edge so that the fork-lift could move on. They cut long slits in the green tarpaulin wherever they could see it.

"You got enough light in there? Can you see where you're going?"

A muffled reply came back to Dougie's question, but it seemed to encourage the constructors, and they began again with the fork-lift in another spot. A few minutes later two dishevelled figures in dusty, torn clothes staggered out from under the pantile hat, the Troublemint Twins holding each other up, to thank their rescuers.

Sunny tried to get up and go to them, but found she absolutely couldn't trust her legs. She sat on the back of the truck, thoroughly overwrought, holding Lucy and sobbing with relief and the release of tension, until they came to her, pausing to stare disbelievingly at the trussed up Arthur Hastings as they staggered across the yard.

Hastings in his turn glared at DiNozzo… but even more at the carefully wrapped parcel that Tim was carrying. He opened his mouth, then closed it and stayed silent, as Tony's look challenged him to do any different. Tim laid the painting carefully in the back of the truck; Sunny put out a cautious hand to touch it, and tears poured down her face. She tried to speak, but all that emerged was a gulp. Tony took his god-daughter carefully from her arms, and Tim wrapped his arms round her, sore ribs or not; holding her close until she calmed, as the constructors walked round the remains of the house, shaking their heads.

Lucy seemed to recognise the comforting thump of her godfather's heart, or maybe she was, in true female fashion, already good at spotting Thierry Mugler cologne, overlayed with subtle tones of plaster and rock wool; whatever, she calmed down at once. He walked about with her, but didn't stray far from the truck, which was rocked from time to time by Arthur Hastings' attempts to free himself.

Dougie McLeish came over, looking puzzled. He looked at Lucy and grinned as sappily as everyone did who met her; she blinked at him with solemn sapphire eyes before dozing off to sleep. "How the hell does a baby come into all this?" He asked wonderingly. "I guess she's not Sunny and Jamie's… I mean, they never mentioned having a child, and she's the wrong colouring…" It was an innocent remark, with no hidden meaning, but it set Hastings off again…

"That's right. That's a little _white _baby…not some mutt immigrant-" Dougie reached into the cab of his GMC, and lifted out a roll of duct tape. He hefted it from one hand to the other a few times, and Hastings shut up again. Dougie listened in mounting astonishment and sorrow, as Tony filled him in on the events of the past twenty-four hours.

"Poor kid," the foreman said finally. "They were going to get married and live here… Look, we'll assess what can be done here, I'll put it in writing, and wait to hear from her. We've got other work, she can let us know when she's ready. Tell her no hurry." He went back to his crew, and Tony went back to the back of the truck. His arm throbbed, and the ripped sleeve of his borrowed jacket was spotted with blood; his temple hurt and he felt slightly light-headed. He looked at Tim, whose fair complexion was a shade or three lighter than normal and streaked with grime, at the scuffed and torn shirt that showed through his open jacket and the few spots of blood on it around his ribs, and wished for Ducky. An agency sedan chose that moment to come over the hill. Gibbs; well, he'd settle for that.

The car disgorged its burden – Tam ran to Sunny, totally ignoring Alberta as he passed her, Polly ran to Lucy; Gibbs and Ziva marched to the 'twins' in their usual threatening manner. Tony and Tim smiled innocently back.

"You couldn't get him without knocking a house down to do it, DiNozzo?"

"Well, that's not exactly what happened, Boss…"

"DiNozzo, that's a house. It's obviously just collapsed."

"Oh, yes, Boss," Tim said obligingly. "And we did knock it down… or, we were in it so _he _knocked it down…"

"_In it?_"

"Yes, Boss," Tony confirmed. "But we didn't exactly get Hastings."

"No," Tim agreed. "Sunny got him."

Gibbs glanced across at the scrap of teenager, currently being hugged by Tam _and_ Polly. "_Sunny got him. _How?"

Tony flashed that grin that made a strong former Marine want to reach for his hipflask. "Boss, we've no idea."

He sat down suddenly on the tail of the truck, and it was at that moment that Ducky trundled his truck over the crest of the hill. Right behind him came Patch Hastings' Saab 9-3X.

Before long, cleaned up, bandaged, dosed with sensible painkillers, and hot drinks courtesy of the construction crew, the two battered agents joined in with the rest of the actors in the day and night's drama, to fill in the gaps in each others' knowledge.

Polly hugged Patch, Sunny, Tony, and Tim, and probably would have hugged everyone else given the chance. When Sunny described how she'd fought off unconsciousness and the danger of dropping Lucy, grabbed the beer bottle and brained Hastings, Tam hugged her, and looked at her with such pride that Gibbs smiled to himself. The young man was too sensible to attempt an on-the-rebound approach, but maybe one day… and he was _not_ being sentimental… one day, maybe the two people who had loved Jamie Hope would love each other and keep his memory between them… Gibbs mentally shook himself.

They walked round to the front of the truck, where Ziva had untangled Hastings from the winch cable and cuffed him to the bracket. They all felt that he might like to hear the whole story too. Considering that two of the women there bore the marks of injuries he had inflicted, it really was the least he could expect.

"Your friends are all under arrest, Mr. Hastings."

"Those savages are no friends of mine –"

"And you're also under arrest," Gibbs went on as if he hadn't spoken, "For conspiracy to murder, two counts of assault, two counts of kidnapping and two counts of attempted murder. One count of criminal damage, and we're seeing if there's some fraud in there somewhere." Hastings tried to speak, but the former Marine cut him off again. "If you've got any sense you'll listen while I read you your rights. No problem for me if you don't – long as I've told you, I've done my job."

His tone as he told Hastings his legal rights was flat and without warmth; as the others filled in gaps, the mood grew bleaker. "I would have died in there but for Tony acting quickly," Tim said, pointing to the house. "We could both have died when it collapsed, but for good luck. If Sunny hadn't hung on and not passed out, Lucy might have been hurt. Things could have been even worse."

As he spoke of the danger to Lucy, Polly gave an involuntary sob. Patch was holding the sleeping baby, almost as a lifeline; he'd received updates on what was going on from the time he'd first been reached by Gibbs, (who'd had to fight his way past one security conscious underling after another to do it,) but he'd had the least time to get to grips with what his father had done, and was still trying to pull himself together.

Tony put his arms round Polly, as her husband, arms occupied, looked down at his father. Hastings, who was beginning to realise that he didn't have a single friend in this gathering, saw the gesture, the whiteness of his son's face, and the expression on it, couldn't take it, and exploded.

"Don't you look at me like that, you snivelling wimp! Everything I've ever done was for you… you just never see it! We try to keep this country clean and pure for you to grow up in, and what do you do? Spend your holidays treating _his_ friends –" He glared at Tam, who took a step forward, but Sunny drew him back. "You're siding with the likes of _them _against me… What sort of a man are you? Letting that gigolo put his arms round your wife while you just stand there looking weak… letting that little foreign tart look after your baby… I finally thought you were doing something useful when you joined the Navy, goddamit, but instead of fighting, what do you do? 'Mom, I've decided to be a doctor'! Treating _prisoners_ as well as our own boys… 'They're human too'…Goody goody twoshoes… you sure you're not one of those don't ask don't tell fellers? You sure –"

Patch handed Lucy back to his wife, and stepped slowly right up to his father's feet. The older man fell instantly silent. "You're going to have to learn to keep your mouth shut, and your opinions to yourself, Dad," he said softly, "if you want to survive in prison."

Hastings gaped in outrage. "You're gonna stand by and see your own father go to jail?"

"You hurt Polly, Dad. You kidnapped our daughter. What do you think?"

Hastings simply didn't know when to shut up. "You ungrateful young bastard… if it was up to you the whole country would be overrun by mongrels – you're letting your ancestors down –"

"Enough," Ziva said softly, unlocking the cuff and hauling him to his feet, as a patrol car added to the crowding in the yard. "I would avoid the subject of forbears if I were you."

"Oh, yeah? And who are _your_ forbears, Chiquita?" he snarled, guessing completely wrong. If he hadn't totally ignored Ziva throughout the christening, he might have been better informed.

"Maybe we have more in common than you think." Her tone was so loaded it snapped everyone to alert. "You describe your mother's father as Joe Myers of Hamilton, Alabama. But you know, he was Joshua Meierson, who came to the USA from Haifa. So enough already about ancestors."

Hastings spluttered and swore, until the Leos approached. "Racist, eh?" one remarked, hearing the language. He was six foot three, built like a sequoia, with a gleaming smile, skin the colour of seasoned oak, and features cast like a Benin Bronze. "Come this way, please, sir…" As Arthur Hastings disappeared into the police vehicle, and it rolled away, Patch Hastings dropped his head onto his wife's shoulder, to hide his tears.

NCISNCISNCISNCIS

Chesapeake Bay was a slatey grey-green under a January sky. It wasn't as cold as if there had been a wind, but snow was threatened, and Keshowse could smell it in the air. The Howakhan people had not had a medicine man to make such decisions for many years; "You have to be born one, Boketaw," the chief Elder had told Tony – so they had gathered together to decide what was the most auspicious place for the first building. The MCRT and Sunny watched, as the older men and women paced the land solemnly. Naantam Black, wearing a ceremonial necklace over his Marine uniform, bridging both worlds, walked with them. He would leave, and serve his country, and return, to be great one day among the leaders of his people. A line of bright feathered lances was finally driven into the hard earth, and they stood, fluttering bravely as Elders and watchers climbed back to the cliff top, to return to the village.

Once again, the school had been set out for ceremony, although this time wonderful smells floated from the kitchen. On this cold but special day, there would be feasting. On the low platform they'd used for the aborted signing not so long ago, an empty easel stood. In the body of the hall, no seats had yet been put out; everyone wanted to stand.

The whole village was there, with the few guests invited from outside, and as the Elders climbed the platform, and the chefs came from the kitchen to watch, the excited murmur died. Paspasat stepped forward. "You remember, I made a dreadful mistake in this matter before," she said slowly. "I will not make such a mistake today. Naantam, here is the deed you came to sign that night. Not a word of your wishes has been changed."

Tam signed, and the land was given to the tribe. The crowd parted, and Sunny came from the back of the room with a parcel wrapped in layers of glassine tied with string. It hadn't been unwrapped since Jamie had carefully swaddled it to hide it on the day he died. Tears ran down her face as she handed it, without a word, to Tam. He cut the string with a bone knife, and revealed the painting slowly and carefully, until the blazing colours once again saw the light of day. He looked at it himself for a long moment, with pride, and love, and sorrow swirling in his mind, then gave it to Keshowse, who set it on the easel.

There was silence in the room, until many breaths were released at once in a collective sigh. The colours glowed, and the ghostly silver mist drew the beholder in. The figure in the water was held for ever at the life-giving moment of emerging from a dark dream, as the colours swirled over and around him.

One person began to clap softly, others joined in, until the whole room sounded like pouring rain, which went on , and on…

When it finally ceased, Keshowse said, "Thank you, Naantam, for this most precious gift." He didn't need to say more.

Mats were unrolled, quantities of delicious food were brought out, and the feasting began. Tony walked slowly forward, and found himself stepping up onto the dais. A moment later he realised Tim had joined him. They looked for a long, silent time, then Tony said, "We saved it, McGee."

"Or did it save us?" Tim asked thoughtfully.

"You could be right."

"Maybe both," Tam said quietly from behind them. The three stood for a long time in companionable silence, each thinking their own thoughts, as they gazed at the Rainbow Lake.

The End

**AN: Did I go OTT with Arthur? I really wanted him to be irredeemably horrible. I also hope the ceremony scene wasn't too sentimental… Thank you for reading.**


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